


Dust to Dust

by tzigane, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Series: Ashes to Ashes [13]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Stargate Atlantis Fusion, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bondage, Diplomacy, Domestic Fluff, Kidnapping, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Rape Aftermath, Subdrop, Subspace, ZERO System (Gundam Wing), bottom Treize
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:34:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 32,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25519633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: It was unbearable, it was too much, and his heart was trying its best to jump out of his chest. Treize managed to get his knees pulled up, and pressed his forehead against them, struggling to breathe as the anxiety crawled up from his gut and clenched around his heart. Not there, anywhere but there, and he'd been fine seeing it in ZERO, not fine, but okay, livable, but being there, smelling the familiar antiseptic hell and must of the place, took his legs out from under him.He could play forward on all of the other scenarios he hadn't wanted to explore, and he knew when that door opened it wasn't going to be Wufei. It was never going to be what he'd wanted, no matter hard he'd played at it back home with Wufei.
Relationships: Chang Wufei/Treize Khushrenada
Series: Ashes to Ashes [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711870
Comments: 8
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

Travel was exhausting.

Wufei was accustomed to it, but he didn't go off-world all that often these days. This had been sadly necessary because he was working on a deal with Quatre on L4, and part of that had involved meeting with a representative from LuthorCorp. That was always difficult because Lex was sneaky, which meant he had to be on his toes the entire time, and this had been no exception.

Coming home was such a relief. He was going to sleep late for the next three days and do nothing more taxing than make sandwiches and watch Mari feed the fish.

"I'm home!" he called, leaving his bags by the front door.

He walked into the hallway and heard the study door creak open. Treize stepped out with the air of a man who had completely abandoned work, possibly for the rest of the day. "I'm sad you won't let me meet you when you're sweaty and pissed off at the airport." That was just because he enjoyed Wufei swearing in Mandarin at the drivers in the traffic circle who didn't know how to drive.

"I know you are, but you can take me upstairs and make me curse just as much," Wufei promised, walking straight into him and leaning up to catch his mouth in a searing kiss. "Hi. I missed you."

"Hmn, I can tell." His mouth lingered against the edge of Wufei's, and he exhaled, seeming to relax all at once as he wrapped his arms around Wufei, low against his back. "You going to the colonies shouldn't make me nervous. I missed you, too. And Mariemaia wants a dog. You didn't miss a lot."

"A dog?" One more kiss. "Swans and ducks and fish are insufficient now?"

"You guys are being gross," Mariemaia advised, clattering down the stairs and promptly plastering herself against Wufei's side. "Don't go away again anytime soon. Father was sad and pathetic, and we ate a lot of takeaway."

"That's right, rat me out immediately." He didn't make any show of denying it, keeping an arm around Wufei as he pulled back a bit, studying him as if to reassure himself that he'd come back from the colonies whole and safe. Then he pressed a slow kiss against Wufei's temple. "We also got the old Defender running, but let's skip the interesting parts of the week, hmn?"

"But the interesting parts are the best," Wufei protested vaguely, turning so he could kiss the top of Mariemaia's head. "Go ahead, rat him out. We have to band together about these things sometimes."

Laughing, she drew away and shook her head. "Those were the interesting parts," she promised, winking at her father.

Maybe he was just paranoid because he'd spent a week dealing with LuthorCorp. It left his nerves on edge. There was no question there was money to be made, and science to be broken and remolded by working with the man, but he was so underhanded that even a hello at breakfast was what Treize called a Command Performance, so he was just wrung out and tense. "I made noodles for you, whenever you work out what time zone you're in and you're feeling hungry." For the moment, he was just glad to be held and close to his two favorite people.

"I might keep you," Wufei told him offhandedly, something that they both said now and again. "I suppose I like you a bit. Especially," he noted, "when you feed me." Treize could manage pasta now after a couple of years of helping out around the kitchen. He was actually pretty good at it.

It was a nice thing to come home to, particularly when he thought it would be the one with the parmesan, lemon and pine nuts. The one-armed hug around his waist was ridiculously tight, though. He was exhausted, so he supposed Treize would tell him what it was when he was less bone-weary. "You need a shower and sleep, and I'll heat pasta up for you."

"You're amazing. Mari, help me drag things to the bedroom?"

She sighed as if put upon. "Fine. If I must."

"You must," Wufei told her, and they made their way back to the front door before dragging the bags up to the bedroom before he glanced behind him and looked at her. "So, tell me how your father's been. Tell me what you've been doing."

"We did work on the truck all week," she said by way of opener. "And I'm getting really good at machining parts. I want to make a motorcycle. Classes are fine, boring. Father was sad and quiet all week; he missed you. He went to bed early a couple of nights, after you talked."

Par for the course then, more or less. "Ah, being apart is disconcerting after so long, I think." Something else was clearly on his mind, but he'd just have to be patient and wait until Treize told him. "A motorcycle, hm? Dangerous, but quite fun. Mostly dangerous when your Aunt Lucrezia is chasing behind. Tell me your plan."

Mariemaia laid his hard side suitcase at the end of the made bed and unzipped it, peering in it quite openly for any surprises he might have brought back with him. "I need to start by sizing and building a frame. I have it built as CAD, but father keeps making me check load bearing for the engine I want to put on it. I just want to put 600ccs on it." It would of course have been easier and cheaper to buy one from a store, but then she wouldn't be able to talk about the year she built her own bike. After all, both of her parents built things and it was a thing they could all do sharing space. Treize tinkered with whatever pleased him, ranging from antique vehicles to Ancient-inspired systems meant to make life easier for people with disabilities. Wufei occasionally built something for the gardens because he quite liked it when someone wandered past one of his creations and yelped because it did something ridiculous like make a sweeping bow.

Mostly, it was nice to spend time in a creative space together, Wufei thought. "Hmm. I'll look at it, if you like. Later, though." After a shower and a nap.

Spaceports and airports were a special hell. He always ended up sweaty and exhausted, and soap sounded very alluring just then. "After you eat." She hadn't found anything immediately, so she stepped back from the bed and declared, "I'm going to see if Father is moping at the coffee pot or actually making dinner."

"Go, go. I need a shower, anyway." And pajamas, because he wasn't putting on real clothes again for at least two days.

She waved at him on her way out and closed the door behind her. As if he'd be so amateur as to leave presents where they could be found and not folded up between his shirts.

He was more than ready for food and a nap by the time he'd had a hot shower and tossed all of the clothes from his luggage into the hamper, presents neatly stacked to the side (a bracelet with orange citrine in an Arabian design and a couple of pieces of clothing with delicate needlework and a definite L4 sort of feel, Wufei thought). Picking up the gifts, he made his way back downstairs, the smell of the pasta wafting deliciously and making his stomach growl.

With exposure to using a kitchen and someone willing to teach him, Treize had worked out how to cook. Sometimes. It hadn't been laziness, but a sheer lack of knowledge -- like any science, it was doable once someone got the hang of it. Treize's face lit up when Wufei entered the kitchen just as he was unceremoniously dumping pasta, spinach, pine nuts, the whole mess, into bowls. "I thought you might have fallen asleep in the shower."

"Hm, it was a fair possibility." Not really, but all the same. Raising his voice, he called out, "Mari! Presents!"

It wasn't a surprise when she skidded into the kitchen on stocking feet. "Where? Where were you hiding them?"

One brow rose. "If I told you, I would have to get a new hiding place."

"Not fair," she declared simply, grinning at him and peeking at what he was holding. "You have a hidden panel in your suitcase then. For smuggling, hmn, data chips and corporate espionage and presents."

"I'll never tell." He gently prodded the packages toward her. They were mostly flat, so they had been easy enough to hide amidst his clothing. "It's a secret."

Treize set a bowl of food in front of him, and then Mariemaia, forks already stuck in, before grabbing his own. "You finished yesterday out without murdering Luthor?"

"Well, they probably don't let murderers on planes." Mariemaia petted thoughtfully at the wrapping before picking it open at a corner. Christmas morning had always been delightful because she opened everything so carefully, slowly, as if she wanted the suspense to last just a bit longer. Not a lot about that had changed.

"We got everything worked out, it was just wearing." Wufei dug into the pasta and brought a bite to his mouth, moaning a little. "You've gotten quite good at this one."

“Yes, I feel like I need to try something new." Treize lifted his eyebrows as he said it, eating a forkful himself. "Just so you don't get tired of this."

"Or takeout," Mariemaia noted, finally getting the packaging on the bracelet open.

Wufei hummed again as he continued. "I'm not sure I'll get tired of it anytime soon, so I think we're good for now." Very, although he wouldn't mind having the spring noodles that Treize made, either. "It's a sign that I've come home again."

Home to the kitchen table and Treize watching him with a relaxed expression, home to Mariemaia making a soft, "Oh," as she lifted the bracelet and turned it between her fingers. Home to England, of all the damn places to which he had never thought he could go or return.

"Uncle Quatre saw it and thought you might like it." Wufei had thought it might be nice to wear with her tiara. She pulled it out sometimes on days when she felt sad. The summer she was thirteen, she had worn it for the entirety of July when she and Bunty had stopped going together. These days, she dated one person this week, and someone else the next, so obviously she was indeed her father's daughter.

Treize had called it the law of mathematical averages and said that it had worked out fine for him. "It's gorgeous." She held it up, letting the light play through it.

"I'm glad you like it. Now, open up the rest." Because Treize would like those, he thought. Plus, Wufei was quite close to filling up on pasta, and it was making him sleepy.

She ate a little more, and then started to delicately unpick the wrapping paper on the short tunic and shirt. Treize seemed quiet and thoughtful, eating and watching and not saying much, so yes, maybe a little sad. He could abandon the dishes to the dishwasher and give in to the carb and time zone induced need to sleep. "Oh, wow."

Mari's fashion sense was nothing like his or Treize's; Wufei was happy with solid colors that looked clean and neat, and Treize had a preference for ornate buttons that did unusual things. Mari, on the other hand, liked brilliant patterns in bright colors. Orange had never stopped being her favorite, and she was fortunate that her red hair had darkened, and it didn't clash. She probably wouldn't have cared even if it had. "I thought that might make you happy."

The orange and the teal and the softer greens of the embroidery were definitely Mariemaia, all over, and she got up from her spot at the table to come over and hug him. "You think of the best things!"

"Ah, no, I just think of you and it generally comes to me." Wufei hugged her in return, kissed the top of your head. "I missed you. Now, tell me about who you're dating this week."

“A boy from Abington College named Peter. He has a motorbike." Thankfully or un-thankfully, Mariemaia had been eyeing bikes herself for years so it wasn't a new interest associated with a boy.

"He also ran into a fence the week before last, so he makes an excellent case for the importance of helmets."

"Because he _was_ wearing one or because he wasn't?" Wufei asked. "Because I must say, if he wasn't, then I see why he'd make an excellent case. But also if he did happen to be wearing one, I suppose. Which is it?"

Mariemaia turned her head slightly, mouth compressed in a way that gave Wufei the answer he needed. "Father called him a himbo."

"I said there was nothing wrong with dating good looking, nice enough, dumb men if you acknowledge what you're getting into," he amended, and it sounded like he was trying to suppress a laugh.

It wasn't as though Wufei could cast aspersions. He hadn't been wearing a helmet when Noin quite literally blew him off of his bike, and if it hadn't been for the nanites, that probably would have ended quite badly. "Ah, well. Not everyone can be your father, I suppose."

“Luckily still sans brain damage. You'll meet him when he comes around, when is it, Saturday?" Treize got up to get water, offering a glass to Wufei as well. "And then you'll agree. He seems very nice, Mariemaia."

"And yet," she sighed. "Now that you've called him that, all I can think of is how, twenty years in the future, the light will shine vacantly behind his eyes and I will be utterly and completely bored."

Wufei shrugged, taking the glass gratefully. "Well, perhaps he'll develop a bit of brains in time."

Treize handed her a glass, too, and then sat back down. "Do you know who was historically written off as a dead eyed waste in his youth? John Rockefeller. It's a bit too early to be sure of anything, except that he should perhaps wear a helmet while he masters steering."

That wasn't wrong at all. "Plus, most male humans think we're all invincible until, what? Twenty-five? Possibly much older for some." Wufei had been well aware that he wasn't by that age, of course, but he'd also been a widower by then.

"No worries," Mariemaia assured them. "I'm not planning to settle down for ages and ages, but when I do, I want it to be more like what you have." She contemplated the matter. "Although possibly monogamy isn't for me. We'll see."

That was flattering, heartening, and he could feel Treize smiling without having to look over at him. "I always found that I had to do more talking and explaining for everyone when I was non-monogamous than when I was monogamous. There are upsides and downsides."

Wufei shrugged and looked at her. "I'm well-suited for monogamy, I think. I rarely find anyone who interests me in just that way, but most people don't seem to have that problem. But your father is right, open relationships require much more negotiation."

"Or you fail completely to negotiate everything and that's how you find that your barracks room has been set on fire." 

Mariemaia turned her head slowly to look at her father. "No."

"Oh yes. Yes. You know, I had it coming." Treize idled the tines of the fork against his mouth, apparently smiling at the memory.

"No one," Wufei pointed out, "has ever set anything of mine on fire. Although, all things considered, I suspect that only one person in any given relationship should be of the arson committing variety, and in your father's case, that's definitely me."

"Luckily I no longer need to be kept in line with threats of fire." Or bombings, or. Or. Or he was sleepy, and the pasta was settling in.

"Hmm, now I have much better ways of making you suffer my wrath." Even his smile felt sleepy.

Mariemaia made a vague sound of disgust. "You're both so soppy. Father, put him to bed, I don't need to know these things."

"You have run of the house again tonight. Don't stay up too late." The bowls were tidied into the sink quickly, water running while Treize added the pot. He finished his water, and by the time he was done, Treize was nudging him off of his chair.

"I've been traveling for longer than it's been since I slept. Or. Wait..." Wufei thought about it. "No, I have no idea what makes any sense. Take me to bed." Which was sadly not the way he usually meant things.

He liked the way Treize's hands steered him once he was up and moving, a familiar touch that kept him steady up the stairs. "It made very little sense which makes the argument for you. I'm glad you're home."

"Me, too." He always was, because home was blissfully domestic even when they were dealing with business and the handful of diplomatic blather that Dorothy foisted off on Treize sometimes. "Missed you and our wild child." She really wasn't, but it amused her when he called her that. The yawn he let out made his jaw crack.

Treize closed the bedroom door behind them, fingers sliding up under the fabric of Wufei's t-shirt to skim over his ribs. "Good. I'm relieved to have you home." Glad was one thing, but relief was interesting. Possibly not in a good way.

"I missed you. Curl up with me?" He could work out what was going on when he was coherent.

"Yes." He started to unbutton his own shirt once the duvet and blankets were pulled down and Wufei was sitting on the bed. There was a weariness around the man's eyes, and he could pull it from Treize when his brain was working better. He was still as good looking as he'd been in Luxembourg, lean, functionally muscled, both hands working about the same thanks to Laoshi's code. There was a great deal more grey and white winning in the war for dominance in his hair, but his eyes were bright and sharp when he leaned in to kiss Wufei.

He hoped they always would be. "Hmm. Definitely keeping you." And if he sounded bleary at the edges, that was just fine.

"Mmmhm, good." He stepped out of his slacks and knelt on the bed for a moment before shifting to curl up behind Wufei. That felt good, lying down and stretching out with a pillow under his head and Treize pulling him close enough that he could feel a muscle in the man's thigh fluttering on its own accord. "If I could, I'd never go."

"Talk about it when 'm awake," Wufei managed, resting his arm over Treize's. He was already mostly asleep, and he was completely out by the time Treize pressed his lips to his ear.

* * *

By the time Wufei opened his eyes, the world was dark, but not middle of the night dark. It was more _the sun should be rising any second now_ dark, and so he closed them again and drifted. Treize was still behind him and the grip on him was tighter than usual, so it was definitely time to be a bit worried. It obviously hadn't been a good week, no matter what he might try to insist later.

He shifted, pressed the back of his thigh back against Treize's, felt Treize's arms shift and flex gently in response, a soft mumble against the back of his head. It did feel good, lying there, drifting, warm but not too warm. The question was whether whatever had made it a bad week was internally or externally driven. Treize had put on an excellent show over video feed when they talked most nights, but the man was a showman by nature. Plus he wouldn't want Wufei to worry while he was gone or come back sooner than expected. He seriously needed to become a mind reader. That would probably be a useful skill for many reasons, but it was better for now to let Treize sleep, and to feel him there against him as the sun slowly began to peek through the windows, soft and golden in a way that was entirely different than living on a colony. It was truly beautiful.

Maybe it was the atmosphere that did it, changed it. He wasn't sure, but he watched the sun rise, drifting half asleep, and finally felt Treize start to wake up, pulling his left arm in close to his own body and stretching a leg. He'd needed to go to bed early as much as Wufei had, and he hadn't been trying to keep up with Luthor and Quatre at socializing. "Mmph."

"Hmm." Treize rolled over onto his back and Wufei turned, resting his head on Treize's chest, sliding a knee over his right leg. "Hey. You must've been tired, too."

"Mhmmm, didn't sleep well. Hit a tricky spot in therapy. News on the datastreams is bad. Just wanted you home and safe." He shifted his hips, sliding his right arm up to trace fingers over Wufei's back.

"I am now." His hand rubbed over Treize's chest, the cotton warm and soft under his fingers. "Nothing to worry about. All in one piece and we even got the deal we wanted."

"There's movement on L3 that looks like unit mobilization. Changes in the supply chain and comms." Of course he'd talk about that rather than whatever it was in therapy.

"You know Dorothy and the Preventers will have been all over it from start to finish, if it's already on the news," Wufei informed him. He wanted to tell him not to worry so much, but that was pointless. Treize couldn't stop fretting any more than Wufei could.

"Dorothy requests my presence as part of the ESUN delegation. It's not formally in the news yet." His right hand kept stroking Wufei's back, probably because he knew that this discussion was going to go exactly the way he didn't want it to go.

"Dorothy," Wufei told him succinctly, feeling himself stiffen, "can go fuck herself. No. Of all the delegations she could send you on..."

"I know," Treize remarked dryly. His heart rate was a little fast under Wufei’s hand. "I've been working through it all week. She wants me there as a show of potential force while they play pacifist games."

"Tell her to send someone else." He knew that making demands wasn't going to end the way he wanted, but god. "You don't need to go to L3. What's she got Quatre and Trowa on staff for if not to send them to negotiations like that? They're plenty of potential force. Quatre blew up an entire colony!"

"Quatre and Relena are going to be the delegation leads. Trowa has politely declined the posting. L3 was not good to any of us." And funnily enough, it was one of the few colony clusters that the old Alliance hadn't tried to subdue with biological warfare.

Something about that made him furious, and Wufei sat up, rolling away and out of the bed before he said something he would regret. He shut the bathroom door behind him, relieved the pressure on his bladder, washed his hands, brushed his teeth, and tried to get hold of his temper.

Treize was still lying in bed by the time Wufei had splashed his face with cold water and rinsed out his mouth. He was rubbing idly at the edge of his pelvis, eyes closed.

"Our daughter," Wufei began, voice tight, "spent her childhood on that colony alternately ignored and being used as a figurehead for insanity. You were tortured for literal years, and god knows what else. I haven't asked because I like to think I'm done killing people even if they need killing. It was the last place I killed someone, for that matter. You do not need to be part of this delegation."

"And yet agreeing to do what the ruling government asks of me is the basis for my continued release. There's a sword over my head; I know we don't talk about it, because there's nothing to be done." He set up, slowly, and rubbed at one eye absently.

"Then I'll talk to her, because of all the slapdash insane crazy things she's liable to do, she needs to understand that this is not one of the things that needs to be done. This is not acceptable, I can't, _you_ can't. You just... no. No! You've made so much progress, and sending you back into that nightmare of a hellhole will undo all of it. We have a daughter who'll be sixteen in less than two months, for god's sake!" And if he wielded that sword, it was strictly because Treize would never say no of his own accord. He would rip himself apart without thinking twice if the only person who wouldn't receive good out of it was himself. It was infuriating. Wufei wanted to say, _No, it will hurt you, it will tear at parts of you that still haven't healed, please don't._ He wanted to beg Treize not to do it for his own sake, or because Wufei loved him and he couldn't bear to see it happen.

None of it would get through. 

"I asked her; she said no. Because I've been to L3, there have been rumors that I was involved, and yes, we expect that the ruling junta started the rumors themselves, but the media streams don't care." He exhaled slowly, looking at Wufei. "Please don't make me feel worse about this."

And god, he was just so angry. Furious, and he wanted to cry, too, a little. There was nothing to do except try and swallow it, crawling back into the bed and burying his face against Treize's shoulder. "I don't want you to go." If his voice shook, well. "You're terrible at protecting yourself." Not physically, because Treize had always been good at that. In other ways.

"I don't want to go." Treize pulled him in close, awkwardly sprawled across his lap, holding him tight. "I asked Dr. Du Maurier how best to deal with it, and she said don't go. So you're in very keen professional company."

Yes, well. That would be because his doctor was quite good at what she did, professionally speaking. "I want to go with you." He needed someone with him who would watch out for him. He really was terrible at it.

"You're wanted for murder, but Earth doesn't have extradition agreements with the colonies." He felt Treize huff a laugh against his hair. "Nor do the colonies cross extradite."

At least that had earned him a laugh. "He needed killing. Several others, besides." Those were the ones that made him worry, the ones who were still alive and waiting on that damned colony. "I just worry for you."

"I know." He slouched slightly, a hand idling down lower on Wufei's back, and sighed again. "I tried everything I could think of. I know I have responsibilities here that are much more important. You, Mariemaia."

Wufei knew he would still call Dorothy. Whether she answered or not, well. That was an entirely different matter. She would probably refuse to change her mind, and that was also deeply annoying. "Is it just you and Quatre and Relena, then?"

"And Duo, I believe, pretending to be Relena's bodyguard." Treize pulled back a little, tipping Wufei's chin up and rubbing a thumb over his cheekbone. "How did I end up surrounded by Gundam pilots?"

"You committed wonderful preposterous sins in your previous life, so you get to be tortured by our presence," Wufei replied, leaning in to press his mouth against Treize gently, the kiss itself little more than a lingering of their lips. "When do you have to go?"

"Tomorrow." He could see why Quatre had asked if he had talked with Treize, but it only made sense in retrospect. "Dr. DuMaurier walked me through some hypnosis. I can't quite see what it was supposed to do in the... long term."

Clasping Treize's upper arms, Wufei sprawled more comfortably over him, stroking his hands where he could reach. They both wanted the comfort, he thought. "If you call me, I will come," he told him. "And I will kill anyone who gets in my way." The terrible thing was that he meant it. He did. Hopefully they wouldn't reach that point. He'd have to call Duo, who would probably be just as willing to kill someone if they looked at Treize funny.

Not for Treize's sake, but for Wufei; and that was friendship. "It's just boring meetings and lengthy negotiations and I've spent this last week wound up for no reason." But it was still a good reason, and there was just no convincing Treize of that. He let himself ruck up the man's T-shirt, and Treize smiled slyly.

"Well. I'll give you something amazing to think about while you're gone, hm?" And then some because he wanted to send all of the good memories with him that he could. "Anything you want."

"Anything I want." He shifted, pulled his T-shirt off and then leaned back in to kiss Wufei again, hands idling at his sides. "Could I work through something with you?"

Interesting. "Yes. I did say anything." No matter what that might be, Wufei thought.

He might actually regret that, particularly as Treize kissed him, and pulled back thoughtfully. "I have a sense-memory I want to overwrite. But I need you to tie me up."

Well. That was different.

"All right. In which case, we need to talk about exactly what you want. And I need you to remember something for me. Can you do that?" His hands stroked up Treize's sides, along his arms.

That was very different, because it wasn't something that had ever come up before or since the height of the Eve war. Treize preferred hedonism, the massive king bed and the claw foot tub that was in the bathroom beside the walk-in shower. "What is it?"

Wufei nodded. "If you're okay, then you tell me green. If you need me to slow down, or if it's too much for the moment, you should tell me yellow. And if you need me to stop and let you go immediately, you should say red. It's easier to remember that way." His hand never stopped stroking him, gentle and easy. "Don't be afraid that I'll be disappointed in you if you have to tell me those things. I'll be pleased with you for being able to tell me how you're feeling, all right?"

He felt Treize inhale, felt the shift of muscles that telegraphed more of what he was feeling than his face did. That it was new and interesting somehow and maybe what Wufei would think of as yellow all the way. "Green for okay, yellow for slow down, red for stop. All right. I can do that."

"Okay." Okay, and Wufei didn't stop petting him, slow and easy. "Now. Tell me exactly what you want from beginning to end if you can."

And if he couldn't get Treize to articulate it, it wasn't something he was ready to explore yet. "It's short and I don't know how else to handle it. It's an intrusive memory... thought. I can't move, and I'm being fucked. I'm in serious pain, and everything makes it hurt worse. I, something Dr. DuMaurier suggested was to attempt to re-experience some of these moments... better. And I know I won't be able to keep from thinking about it."

It was good that he wasn't going back to L3. He would definitely kill someone. "All right. You can't move. Is there a specific way you need to be tied?" God help him.

"Any way as long as I can't move my upper arms or upper legs." Oh, that hurt his heart, and Treize leaned in to kiss the side of his neck, as if to prove somehow that he was still fine.

That would be a little difficult considering their bed. It was ornate, dark wood with art deco roses and metalwork. "All right. Breakfast first or after? I'm going to need some things." He could probably manage with ties if he knotted them together. Maybe.

"Breakfast is a good idea. Remind Mariemaia that we haven't completely abandoned her." He twisted a little, and rolled Wufei, pressed him down against the bed to kiss him properly. Whether it was an early thanks or because he found it an interesting idea was hard to tell.

"Mmmhmmmm." That was a good feeling, being under him, being over him. It was all good, and when he rolled off, Wufei could only sigh. "French toast?" Because it was still his specialty, after all this time.

Pancakes had not gone so well, and usually ended up burnt. He'd managed waffles with pancake mix, but when a man had a specialty... "Yes, and I'll break the bad news to her. I did spend all week trying to get out of it." He took a moment to stand and stretch, balancing correctly before heading into the bathroom for a much less angry version of what Wufei had already done.

By the time they'd made breakfast and told Mariemaia about the trip, Wufei had made a few decisions and wandered into the old room with the sewing machine. While Treize had been right and most of the things in there were downright ancient, he was fairly certain there might be material in there, and in the end he wasn't wrong. There were a number of ribbons and bits and pieces, but he was in luck. He did manage to find a couple of bolts of fabric, old and soft, and so he found a pair of scissors and cut a few strips before heading back to the bedroom.

Treize was showing Mariemaia how to fabricate the frame for her dream motorcycle in terms of tools and the 3D metal printer that Treize swore couldn't be trusted because it didn't draw nearly enough energy for the pieces it made not to sheer off, even if it was just being used for fiddly switches. It would give Wufei something to amuse himself while he spent time with their daughter, and he tried not to worry too much. 

While he tried not to think too hard about what Treize was asking for, because now he had that mental image, too. He would have to make time to talk to Duo later today. He didn't want them leaving Earth without every possible contingency having been covered.

By the time Treize was done talking with Mariemaia, Wufei thought he was pretty pleased with himself. He'd braided the material together and created slip knots, easy enough to loosen on their own. Treize wouldn't be hurting and would be tied well enough unless he wanted not to be, and that suited Wufei well. He didn't want him worrying that he wouldn't be able to get loose.

It would be a good version of the thing that was bothering him; probably not more than a few seconds of memory that he could recall from the drug haze, but that was all it took. A few seconds, snapshots of time were all he could remember from his worst days: a swirl of petals and blood, the sky so wrongly bright; an explosion in space on a day full of them.

"Hello." Treize leaned up against the door frame, not quite coming in yet.

"Hi." Wufei smiled at him from his seat in the middle of the bed. He was a little over-ready, a little prepped with a plug so he’d be ready for every part of what he was planning. "All done?"

"I think so. For a while, until she has questions. She did call me an asshole for not telling her what was going on." The edges of his mouth twitched, in an odd sort of pride. He stepped into the room, and closed the door behind him.

"Is she pretty well settled for now?" It wasn't as if she'd bother with knocking on their closed bedroom door unless she was bleeding, or the house was on fire.

"Yes. She was getting on the phone with Peter down in the workshop." Treize stopped at the end of the bed, looking at Wufei with a thoughtful expression. "Thank you for doing this."

It felt a little weird, being thanked for something enjoyable. "You're welcome." He paused, pulled up the braided material loops. "I'm going to use these. Sort of a slip knot so that all you have to do at any point is let your arm go lax and wriggle it to slip out. Just in case. I'll keep an eye on them anyway because I don't want it to get too tight. Do you remember the words?"

"Green, yellow, red." He was obviously being careful not to be cocky in his response, which made it easier. "And I won't be afraid to use them." Time would tell on that point, but he had at least listened to Wufei's rules.

Meredith had always been so good about the rules. It had been easy with him, and he thought perhaps it would be easy with Treize.”Okay." Okay, and that was actually quite charming, lighting a bit of a fire in him. "Come to me." Come to him, let him kiss him, let him touch him.

Treize was still dressed, house sweatpants and a regimental t-shirt -- they were endlessly absurd, years and units, in-jokes that made no sense, stupid slogans in multiple languages, mechs and skulls, or a white donkey, and each one looked as if it had been lived in -- but toed off his runners before getting on the bed and crawling to Wufei.

"Hi," he murmured, reaching down and clasping his hips, tilting his head up in a silent request for a kiss. He didn't have to ask, and the kiss he received was slow, heated, a slip of tongue into his mouth while Treize brought a hand up to rest on Wufei's side. It felt delicious, and Treize was amazing, had never been anything else. "I'm going to make you feel so good," he whispered against that mouth. "I'm going to fuck you until I come, and then I'm going to ride your cock until you do." Because if he needed something better, if he needed to replace a bad memory, Wufei was determined that he'd give him the best one ever.

That close, he felt the shiver Treize gave as he exhaled, anticipation rising as surely as the man's dick did in his sweatpants. "I love coming in you. Fuck, yes, please."

Reaching down, he grasped the hem of Treize's t-shirt and tugged, pulling it up and over his head. "God, you're beautiful." Always. Getting older, yes, but still strong, broad through the shoulders, comfortable in himself, and that was a great deal more attractive than if he'd been some hardbody. Combined with all of those smarts, the sheer conniving strength of him, and Wufei thought he'd never find anything that would make him as happy as this did.

He didn't want to lose five amazing years for something stupid, something that they couldn't even help with. The sheer intense want Treize radiated, his reaction every time Wufei got close whether they were alone or not, still melted him. Shirt off, Treize leaned back into him, kissing his neck while his hands were still free to roam Wufei, sliding up under his shirt. "Not fair for you to stay dressed."

"Ah, but that's the nice thing," Wufei told him, and it was hard to think when he was doing that. "I'm in charge so I get to decide what's fair." It was teasing, and then Treize nipped him just right, and a shudder worked through him. "Oh. Oh, god, that's..." Wonderful, and his hands pushed at the waistband of Treize's sweatpants, lightly pushing them down until he could wrap a hand around his cock. "God, I missed you." And his fabulous dick.

Treize groaned against his skin, and rocked slightly against Wufei's grasping fingers. "I don't want to go tomorrow." Clearly life was better there in bed with Wufei, getting a dry fingered hand job while trying to get his sweatpants off.

"Don't think about it. We'll think about that tomorrow." Or maybe he could come down with a terrible violent stomach virus. Food poisoning. Wufei would consider it, but for now he gently pushed at Treize's chest, getting him to lie back so that he could get him completely naked. "Or tonight. Or some time when I'm not concentrating on making you come."

He moved with Wufei, settling on his back and pressing a heel against the bed so he could flex and get his damn sweatpants the rest of the way off, cock bobbing ridiculously for a moment. "Later, then."

Later, and Wufei crawled over him, pressing against him while still clothed. "Later," he promised, and then caught his mouth, kissing him again, and again, and again. His hands roamed, stroking every inch he could reach, and he kept kissing him, partially because it felt good and just a bit to keep him distracted. The first braided strip was attached to the bed rail and he'd left them lying close at hand, across the sheets. "Hey," he husked, rising up slightly. "Are you ready? I'm going to put on the first one."

"I'm ready." Ready but not quite cocky, and he was flushed, cheeks and neck and chest a suggestion of red and heat, so the kissing and stroking had done their job. He offered up his right arm first, and Wufei slipped the loop over his wrist and up his forearm, tugging until it was comfortably settled. Then he leaned down and kissed Treize again, lining up their hips and giving a gentle rock. If they were going to do this, they were going to do it slowly, the way that he wanted to do it -- like molasses, careful, and watching him every step of the way.

He didn't pull at his arm, just rocked up against Wufei and kissed him back, kissed him the way he said hello sometimes. "Please, Wufei."

"Hmmm. Please what?" He seemed to be coping all right with it, and Treize reached for the other loop, fingers clasping it as they rubbed against one another.

"I want it to be you." Treize offered his other wrist, while he bent his right leg at the knee to press against Wufei. "In my head."

God. That... that hurt, that made him worry, but instead he slipped the loop over his wrist and tugged, getting it snugly placed where he wanted it. It was nothing he couldn't get out of if Treize wanted, but Wufei kept his eyes on him all the same, nuzzling until he was sure that he wouldn't panic. "I will. I'll do my best to be the only thing in your head when we're done."

He didn't fight it, just tilted his head slightly into the motion of Wufei's kisses, breathing carefully, slow and controlled. "You're very often the only thing in my head."

"Good. That's very good, god, you're being so good for me," Wufei whispered, kissing him again, and then again. "Tell me your color. Tell me how you're doing."

"Green." His eyelashes fluttered for a moment, but he was keeping them closed as he kissed Wufei back. "Never asked before, do you see colors in your head when you come?"

Huh. "Fireworks. White and orange, mostly. I know it's just sparking behind my eyelids, but..." But it was quite nice, and Wufei drew back and looked down at him. "I love that you're so good for me, you know?" So easy, and Wufei sat up, pulled off his own shirt, and dropped it by the side of the bed. "Fuck, you're beautiful."

"Feels like colors. Hard to explain." He rolled his shoulders, drawing the makeshift ropes taut without trying to pull free, and sighed, seemingly satisfied before he opened his eyes briefly to look at Wufei.

"Tell me about it." He leaned back and slipped off his pajama bottoms, tossing them by the side of the bed to join his shirt. "Tell me how it makes you feel when you come." He bypassed Treize's chest entirely, crawling between Treize's knees and kissing low on his belly.

Treize's cock, hard and weeping at the tip, bumped against him and he ignored it for now. He felt Treize inhale, and the shiver of his exhale, before he answered. "You are blue and white and sometimes the entire rainbow. I..." He inhaled, and pressed the inside of his leg against Wufei's shoulder. "You are so bright."

And god, if anything had ever made him feel adored, that was it. That was it and it was perfect, and he pressed his mouth to the soft line where thigh met groin and made his way down, leisurely and effortless, hands stroking everywhere he could reach. "Fuck. _Fuck_ , you're perfect." Utterly and completely perfect, and Wufei bit gently at the inside of his right thigh, kissing right behind it.

Treize groaned, uncontrolled, but half startled and clearly enjoying it. Sometimes he pressed so hard on his hip bone that he left bruises on himself, but the skin inside of his thigh was soft, smooth over muscle, a little ticklish. "Please."

"Hmm, I love it when you say that. I love it when you sound so..." God, and he stroked his hand down, pushed his knees apart, shifted his feet higher. It helped him reach the next restraint, slip it over his foot and up to his thigh. "God, you're just so... I can see you and..."

And he was completely relaxed into it, he was gone and loose and had handed himself over to Wufei without a hesitation. There was trust, and then there was _trust_ , and he knew Treize trusted him, but this was real trust, subconscious looseness about it, a bone deep acceptance that Wufei would keep him safe. Just like that.

He'd piloted a Gundam. He'd won a war. He'd survived catastrophe after catastrophe, and sometimes he felt a little bit insanely invulnerable. That had nothing on this. Nothing at all, and he couldn't keep his mouth off of Treize anymore, even as he pushed up his other thigh and snagged the last braided strip.

It was easy to tighten that last restraint, and Treize shifted only scantly, eyelids fluttering again as Wufei's mouth closed around the head of his cock. "Oh, yes, yes..." He squirmed just enough to find himself secured and then seemed to settle.

Wufei lifted his head, took his mouth off of him. "Tell me your color." His voice was rough, and his tongue lapped out, licked up the bottom side of it.

"Green." He flexed his arms lightly, and the thigh loops didn't pin him down as much as ankles would have. It was instead going for a particular sensation, and Wufei didn't think Treize's cock had been sucked then. He exhaled in a shiver and added softer, "Very very green."

Oh, that was good to hear. Better than good, and Wufei settled himself comfortably, took a deep breath, and went down on him. His throat protested and Wufei ignored it, let his throat spasm, and kept his teeth carefully covered. Fuck. Fuck, he tasted good, he always did, and his hand clasped at the root, thumb rubbing slowly up and down as he pulled up again, managed to catch a quick, hard breath, and then went down again, using his left hand to begin rubbing just behind his balls, cupping them and rolling gently.

Treize didn't move. He made noise, he breathed harder, he pressed faintly back against Wufei's fingers, shoulders flexing slightly as if he couldn't help himself. "Feels so good, no one else does this like you, so glad, I missed..."

Maybe that was true, maybe no one did, but Wufei liked to think that it was just that he enjoyed doing it so much. He'd always loved blowing Treize, and he moaned around it, finally letting go of the base of his prick and fumbling in the sheets for the lube. He'd planned well because he managed to get his fingers on it, fumbled the bottle open and got them slick, and he moaned again, just thinking about it. Thinking about Treize, about how it felt to be in him, and fuck.

_Fuck._

He wasn't sure how long he would last but it would have to be long enough. He kept sucking, slurping and his jaw starting to ache as he introduced a slick finger behind Treize's balls, and the other man inhaled softly, spreading his legs a little wider. "Please fuck me. Please, I wanted it to be you, I wanted..."

And there was no way, no way to deny him that, stroking into him with one finger, just one, so hard to wait. Hard to be patient until he could slip in two, and he couldn't stop moaning around him, couldn't stop swallowing around that exquisite thick cock as he opened him up, as he worked, and when he heard Treize sob, he finally pulled off, rasping out a question in one word. "Color?"

"I don't... I..." Everything was still, and Treize swallowed, eyelids fluttering between open and closed and out of it, disoriented for a moment before he said, "Yellow? I want you, please, Wufei."

Time to back off, then, and he slipped his fingers loose, crawling up so that they could be face to face. "Hey. Hey," he murmured, leaning in to kiss him. "Hi, sweetheart. I'm slowing down right now because I want to be sure you're all right.”

He nodded agreement at Wufei, and pulled loosely at the restraint at his right elbow, tightening it. "I'm okay, I just, I wanted so badly for it to be you, you're home, I wanted to be back home with you in Luxembourg, I was confused, and I thought the charge had gone off and I don't know. I..." He was crying silently, tears sliding from the corners of his eyes.

"Shhh. Shhh, it's all right. It is me now. It is me." Bringing up his left hand, he gently stroked away the tears. "It is me. And it always will be. You're at home with me. We took out the charge. I will never walk away from you again."

They were going to be lucky he didn't find a way to stow away on the ship they were going to take to the colony. Treize inhaled and held it for a moment before slowly exhaling. "Didn't remember the battle at first. Just..." He repeated it, and swallowed, flushed and calming slowly. He turned his head toward Wufei's fingers, kissed the tips.

Gently, he tipped Treize's chin toward him, kissed him once, kissed him again. "I know. I know and I love you, and I'm here. I am never leaving you again. Can you tell me how you're doing?"

"Lime?" That was sideways, and then Treize corrected, "Green. You always smell right."

"Mmmhm." He kissed him one more time. "Do you want to keep going?"

"Yes. Please don't stop now." His mouth lingered when he said it, as if trying to keep Wufei kissing him, never mind that his mouth was sloppy wet.

"I'm going to check in with you a little more often, okay?" One more kiss, and then he shifted, reached behind himself and slipped a finger back into Treize. He was still slick, still loose, and so he shifted, moved back between his legs. "Are you ready? Do you need to be worked open more?" He knew he was, but it was good to ask, too.

His thigh flexed in reaction, a welcoming gesture against the light restraint, and Treize said, "No, I'm ready. Please."

Ah, yeah. Yes, he loved hearing it, loved seeing Treize that way, and he stroked one hand over his hip for a moment, then got his thighs just under Treize's and began to snub his way into place, flexing his own hips just a little, just a bit. Wufei could see when he was settled, and he took a deep breath, looked up at Treize, and pushed. Watched the way Treize's mouth tightened briefly and then went slack, heard the low groan that came from his chest, felt the half-restrained clench of his thighs when he opened his eyes and looked at Wufei like he was a sunrise.

Anyone who didn't feel powerful when someone loved them that much, didn't feel like the world was centered around them, would have to be stone dead, he was pretty sure. Add in the tight slick clutch around his cock and Wufei already felt the edge of it altogether too close. Taking a deep breath, he slowly pulled out just a bit, and then stroked back in a centimeter at a time, holding Treize's hip, the one that usually bothered him the most. "You're beautiful. You're so... You're so much, you're everything, god, you're... fuck, you're everything."

Straining against the restraints just enough, just enough to feel them, and looking up at Wufei with a dazed sort of adoration as Wufei got comfortable, started to feel sure that he wasn't going to come too soon. "This is what I wanted, I begged, I, you're amazing..."

They both were, and he finally, finally, pushed all the way into him. "I will never leave you again," he promised, stroking the inside of his thigh. "I will always give you this, I will give you whatever you need." His voice was shaking, thick, and he flexed his hips, his breath a tremor in his throat.

Treize gave an agreeing hum, breathing hard and shifting against the restraints, tightening them while he tried to move against Wufei's hips, making it hard to keep his movement restrained. "Yes..."

"Fuck." Fuck, fuck, because he was tight and hot and squeezing around him, and Wufei shuddered because he was heating up quickly between that and the plug that he'd placed to keep himself open for riding Treize to a finish. "Fuck!"

He gripped at the outside of Treize's hips, not that he needed to hold him still as he started to pick up the pace, letting himself go because Treize was trying to move against him, pulling at the restraints, eyes mostly closed again, lost to it. Nothing he was saying made sense, but it was mostly 'more' and 'please', begging for it. Needing it, and Wufei could give him what he wanted, what he needed. Wufei would give it to him, and he closed his eyes, pushing deep, _having_ him, and in a way no one else ever would again. Ever could again, because he belonged to Wufei as much as Wufei belonged to him, and that was the thought that drove him over the edge.

He was going to be the one in Treize's head now.

Treize was breathing hard, mouth loose, watching him dazedly again, dick still jutting up desperate for more than glancing attention when Wufei finally started to move again. He pulled at the right arm restraint.

"Do you want loose?" He sounded a little fucked out. Maybe he was. "Or do you just want to touch?" It took a moment before he could muddle together the right question. "Color?"

"I don't know." Holding still for a moment was perhaps a good idea. "I want to touch you, I can't touch you."

"Okay. Okay, okay." He didn't know his color, so Wufei started with the binding on his left thigh, fumbling for a moment before he slipped it down and got it off. He repeated it with the right, and then did the same with Treize's arms. "It's okay, you can touch me, you can do anything you want."

As soon as his hands were free, he was touching Wufei, reaching for his sides and trying to pull him in, clearly desperate for a kiss, for contact, for something, and Wufei didn't know where Treize was in his head just then. He just didn't, and he allowed himself to be moved as Treize wanted him, the kisses edged in desperation and something sweet, his arms coming up and curving around him, holding him loosely but close, easy to get out of if he wanted.

He didn't want to move just yet, he wanted to take the plug out and get Treize off, but the clutch of arms around him was insistent and the press of mouth against his, the slide of tongue was better than good. "I wanted it to be you."

"I know." He did. He did know, and he knew why, and he knew what he meant, and Wufei had never hated anyone as much as he hated those bastards on L3 in that moment. Not even Treize, and god, he'd hated him. "I know, I know. It is now. It's me, you can always have me. Can you tell me your color now?"

"Green." That was better, that was better than _I don't know_ , and sounding lost to it in a way that might not have been good.

"Good. You're so good, you're perfect," Wufei murmured in between kisses. "You're beautiful. Can you tell me what you want to do now?"

He shifted his hips, one hand light on Wufei's backside. "I want to fuck you."

"Yes." As if there would ever be another answer. "Yes, yes, please. Please..." Because it had felt so good to hear him say that, and Wufei might still be sensitive, but he wanted it.

Treize turned his head, kissed just at the edge of Wufei's jaw, back by his ear, and guided him to sit back, to do what he'd been planning to do all along except now Treize was involved again, worshipping him with touch instead of just his eyes, and Wufei thought that if he never loved anyone else again, Treize would have been more than enough.

"I love you," he gasped, and this was wonderful, this was perfect, this was everything he ever could have wanted.

"Some time I have to say that when I'm not about to be balls deep in you." Treize kissed his neck, easing him back, and then fingers found the plug and toyed with the edge for a moment. "Ohhh, fuck."

Yes. Yes, and Wufei's mouth dropped open in a gasp, neck and back arching in response. "Oh! Oh, oh god." Treize's fingers tracing his rim made him clench in response and god that felt... it just _felt_.

He felt Treize grasp it finally and pull it loose unhurriedly, rocking it a little before he sat up and eased Wufei back further. Finally it was out and dropped on the bed, before he stuck a finger back in Wufei to trace that stretched rim again. "Didn't have anything like this happen, either."

"Ahhh, fuck, you're so good," Wufei managed, shuddering. He was almost oversensitive, but it was more than worth it. "So good, so good, I want you to..." Fuck.

"Almost." He grabbed the lube, and nuzzled at Wufei for a moment, alert and with him again in a way he hadn't been when he'd been tied up. More lube, probably on his own dick, and then he shifted Wufei, moved their bodies together, and steadied Wufei as he positioned him just over his dick. "Not going to last long."

"Probably won't, either," Wufei told him, and he shifted, got his knees under him just so, and felt Treize slicking his cock into place, getting him where he wanted him.

It always felt so good sliding down onto his dick, a press and wait moment once the head was in, and Treize leaned back on his elbows, watching Wufei like he was memorizing the moment.

"God, you're..." Big. Always so big, and he felt himself clenching around him for a long moment before it felt like moving again would be a possibility. More than a possibility, and he worked himself down slowly, so slowly, Treize's eyes on him, and it took all he could do not to slam straight down and just rock, rock on him until he came. He'd already come once, and he felt like he could do it again, maybe, or just enjoy being oversensitive while Treize stroked Wufei's thigh with a soft touch, trying to keep his own hips still.

"'m ready. So ready, I want you to fuck me, I want you to come in me, I want..."

Treize closed his eyes for a moment, holding the memory in place or Wufei wasn't sure, but when he opened them again he started to rock up into Wufei, flexing his thighs and legs to slowly thrust up and then ease back down.

He knew he was babbling a little, and he pressed both hands on Treize's chest. It felt good, and he kept saying it, kept telling him how good it was, how he wanted to feel him come, feel his touch, see his pleasure. Make a moment that was based in sheer horror something better while Treize seemed to finally let go, fingers unsteady as he clutched and stroked at Wufei's sides, thighs, fucking Wufei deeply and finally a little erratic. "Oh, yes, yes..."

 _Yes,_ and Wufei shifted enough to get a hand on his own prick, stroking in quick, loose motions, and yeah, yeah, yes, he was going to manage it, make Treize feel it, and when he felt Treize stiffen, he knew that he was there, so there, and his entire brain just sort of went into fuzz, soft and warm, bright white light behind his eyes, orange sparks, and fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

He was never not going to be able to notice the colors now that Treize had brought it up. 

"Seems like a good day for a bath." Treize mumbled it, a hand resting on Wufei's sweaty back as he laid there, sprawled atop Treize and trying to catch his breath.

"And a nap." All of the naps, so many naps, and he stroked his hand slowly along Treize's shoulder. "What's your color?" Just to check in.

Treize made a noise, one good laugh. "Green. That was... helpful. Hadn't looked at it before, it was just... there."

"Mhmmm." His hand kept stroking. "You've managed to put my brain out of order." That didn't even make sense, exactly.

"Good. You helped me relook at something painful. I'm not even sure I can manage packing later." Wufei hadn't even unpacked yet, just jet lag unpacked. Treize shifted, kissed the edge of Wufei's head. "Thank you."

"Mmmm. Welcome. Pretty sure I should be the one thanking you, because wow. That was intense and very pleasurable." And then some. "Haven't done anything like that in a while."

"Never done anything like that before." He enjoyed the muzzy post-sex discussions with Treize, he was always guaranteed to hear at least one thing that gave him pause, either to laugh or frown.

One hand waved idly. "Mu Tsu. We're lucky nothing ever went to hell. He was a master of hidden weapons, there were." Another wave. "Dunno. Ropes, cuffs. Things. We didn't know what we were doing. Read up on it later. Meredith's got a thing for bondage."

"It was enjoyable." He didn't want to tell Treize that he'd dropped into subspace like a rock, a very stressed out rock who struggled to track his color but definitely gave it his all. The hand along his spine idled, slowly.

Wufei hummed in answer. "I like it. Don't have to have it, though. Mostly I like it when my partner does."

Treize gave a thoughtful hum, eyes closing for a moment, dozily. "We can do it again sometime. Doesn't have to be me working through... whatever. Horror."

There was no helping the laugh that huffed out of him. "All right. If you want. I'll find you some things to read." Because that was always step number one with Wufei -- research, read about it, learn how things worked.

Try it himself, adjust, read more. Treize gave another hum of agreement, and Wufei felt him drop off a little. They could lie there sweaty and doze for a bit before bathing and getting up to face the world again.

* * *

The last time he'd been part of a formal delegation, he'd been a Lieutenant Colonel playing at the same kind of role he was playing at now; the pocket tactician, the wild card that they brought along in case... in case something. In case they needed a sudden firefight or someone to throw a grenade in the middle of the room, metaphorical or real. 

He'd been silent on the long shuttle to L3, listening to Relena and Quatre compare their notes, flipping through his own datapad full of indexed notes and thoughts. The ruling Junta included the remnants of the Barton army, fragments of White Fang, one of the head farmers from the L3 cluster, and the rumored fragments of Operation Meteor.

It should have been a surprise when Duo plopped himself down beside him. It wasn't. "Hey, dude, what's up?" His hand was out, probably to shake but also possibly for some kind of bizarre ritual that Treize couldn't necessarily identify.

His datapad was open to pictures of the leaders, mapped to the documents that were most relevant for information linked to them, his notes, video files, a whole personal intel package that he didn't even need to look at now that he'd built it. "Maxwell, good to see you." He shook his hand briskly, giving the man a tight smile.

"Yeah, you, too. You're looking good these days." That grin was a little bit teasing. "Little keyed up, though, maybe. I talked to Wufei last night. Trip's stressing him out a little, so, y'know."

So Wufei had talked to Duo. That L3 had been a bad situation all around wasn't a secret among the Preventers; that he'd had a long road to recovery, but now could mostly function well as long as he stuck to routines and was mindful. "I know. I expect this to be stressful and boring, and that you should keep an eye on Relena. They'd been planning to kidnap her when they were... briefly derailed."

Duo nodded thoughtfully. "Good thing I've got two eyes, then, huh?" He nudged Treize a bit, head tilting to the side. "Seriously, though. If you decide you wanna go somewhere, it's all as a group, this thing. I know you know, but I thought we should talk about it, you know? So that I know that you know that I know that you know."

"I know." The edges of his mouth twitched up into a smile because he couldn't help it. Some jokes were classic. He gestured to the Colonel on the datapad, top left corner. "Make sure he doesn't divert me to another room or another meeting. Please."

Reaching over, Duo tapped the screen, pulled up the photo of him looking at it in such a way that Treize knew he wouldn't forget it. "Yeah. Got it. I'll warn Quatre and Relena, too. No going off anywhere with anybody else, anyway, but about him in specific."

"Him in specific, yes." He didn't have to explain, Wufei had probably done the verbal footwork for him, and that was perfect. It saved him time. He closed the datapad after a moment, having seen more than enough of the face. "Otherwise I expect this to be a complete shit show."

Slim shoulders shrugged. "Yeah, Relena does, too. I mean. She didn't say in as many words, but she one hundred percent believes it. Pretty sure Quatre does, too. But what can you do? Diplomats gotta be diplomatic."

"Two diplomats, a senior military advisor," and that title made him want to laugh, "and a bodyguard. Quite the delegation." Almost as if Dorothy were minimizing the number of personnel at risk. No finance ministers, no education, no developments policy, no, they were there on a war footing.

No question.

The knife in Duo's smile was bright and vicious, and Treize was perhaps a bit relieved that he was there. If Wufei couldn't be, then Duo was a workable replacement. Definitely on the same level of chaotic neutral, anyway. "Excellent delegation. Much easier than getting ten to twelve people rounded up if something goes awry."

"Just what I was thinking." Duo could've been any of his senior NCOs over the years, with a low tolerance for bullshit and a keen eye for an opportunity to be exploited. Some days, not very often, he missed having people.

"Yeah, well." Duo paused, glancing back to Relena and Quatre. "We're about half an hour out from docking, so, y'know. Strap in, probably gonna be a bumpy ride." And he didn't think that just referred to docking.

"It will be fine." He shifted to tuck the datapad away into his shoulder bag. "We all know what we're going into. I assume you're armed?"

Oh, that was a dirty grin. "Would I actually not be?"

"Good, glad to hear it." He could manage minimally armed, and any seriously overt weapons carried by him would be interpreted... badly, whereas the lead Preventer on the mission had no such restriction.

He probably had a gun hiding under his hat. God alone knew what he had in his hair. That hair was pretty unreal, actually. He had to wonder exactly what L2 had going on considering the way that stuff grew.

"General?" Relena's voice was polite, almost questioning. "Would you like to look at the things we've put together?"

"Yes, of course. Excuse me, Duo." He stood up from his seat, and headed over to the table where Relena and Quatre had been coordinating -- plotting -- on their master plan to deal with a rebellion.

The next hour or so was information review and a variety or warnings and general conniving. It would, he suppose, have been significantly more startling if they hadn't been. There was a reason that diplomats were diplomats, and they were honestly sneakier than most. It was a comfortable enough way to pass the half hour, and they were as prepared as they were going to be by the time they docked at the spaceport. He knew the party line, knew what he should say and what he shouldn't say as Senior Military advisor. Knew his position was to be intimidating and represent the old powers that backed Relena and Quatre, who were going to do most of the talking. 

He straightened his suit jacket and fell into place behind Quatre as they filed off the plane carrying their luggage.

They were met by a small contingency and there was some relief in the fact that Kirill wasn't a part of it. He still managed a grimace that passed for a smile, and he was fairly certain that was sufficient. They were herded into two cars and driven to a nearby hotel. ESUN had requested a large shared suite, and they went up to the top floor to find that they had four suite hotel rooms with two each connected by pass through doors. 

"Please refresh yourselves and change for dinner. The rest of our delegation will meet you at 1800 sharp in the dining room downstairs. If you have any needs, please call down to the front desk," Councilman Marat declared, smiling solicitously.

"Of course." Relena's voice was smooth and easy, her smile just the right side of warm but not too cool, exactly mirroring Ladon's. "That's quite kind of you, it was a long trip." And they still had four hours to get themselves into order and be ready to face the Junta.

"Most appreciated," Quatre agreed.

Treize just inclined his head slightly, while the man handed four keys to Duo as if understanding that their security man would take care of things. "Excellent. We will see you then." He bowed, deeply, and turned to leave via the one elevator. There were stairs in the far end of the hallway which Treize had clocked immediately.

"Well," Duo declared cheerfully enough. "Let's go check it out, shall we?"

"It's a little early to expect booby trapped front doors," Treize agreed, reaching to take a key from Duo, and stepping toward the right door to pop it open. That seemed to get everyone moving with Duo looking the keenest. He had a lot of diplomatic ducklings to take care of, after all.

Quatre gave a huff of breath. "In my experience," he said thoughtfully, "it's never too early to expect booby trapped front doors."

Relena shrugged. "I'm with Treize on this one, I'm afraid."

"You can't play their psychotic games if you're dead." He left the door propped open for the moment with his suitcase as he stepped further into the room. Looked like a normal room with a small seating area, a bathroom, a king size bed.

At least he wouldn't feel cramped. Just lonely, because having an empty bed two weeks in a row wasn't exactly ideal. He did have some very good things to think about in the meantime, and Wufei had sent him a frankly appalling amount of literature, both fictional and otherwise, to keep him occupied.

Love was sharing interesting porn as a distraction. 

Treize went to the connecting door to the room next door, unlocked it and opened it from his side of the room. The afternoon before had been enlightening, and he felt oddly settled and calm about the situation inside his head. It had been very very close to putting him back there, and he didn't think he could think of the bad memory without remembering Wufei at the same time. It had muddied the waters nicely.

He wasn't sure what it said about his psyche that the idea of gaining consciousness in the midst of a gory mess of rape and torture, and finding out that it was his lover would have been okay in his mind, rather than a confusing complete unknown. It said he still felt guilty for Meiran.

He startled when Duo flung open the door from the other side. "Hey there, buddy! We're suitemates." He was grinning like a lunatic. "Well. Y'know, Relena's over here, too. Quatre's just next door, but I'm pretty sure he can take care of himself. Not that you can't, but man, have you ever been locked into a single prison cell with Wufei? Because I have. I have, and I'm pretty sure I do not want him giving me side eye, you know?"

He stepped back from the door, partially closing it. "I'll just leave it loosely closed, so you both have your privacy." He didn't comment either way about what Wufei would or would not do.

"Nah, we're good." And there was a bit of steel in those violet-blue eyes. "Just, y'know. Figured I'd let you know we're here if you need anything, right?" Which was to say, don't wander off, Treize knew. Don't get out of reach.

It made him feel a little like a ten-year-old.

It was just concern, but he didn't require that level of concern. It was Wufei's over protectiveness, and he knew the circumstances were... If he hadn't been almost a corpse, he wouldn't have been in that situation to the extent he'd been in. "Right. I'll see you downstairs at 1800."

"Roger that," Duo said cheerfully enough, and shut the door behind him.

Well, all right, then.

There was time to bathe, and more than enough time to get dressed. There was enough time for a nap, too.

It was too much time before dinner; he checked his files one more time, spent a bit reading, and then dozed a bit in a chair in the seating area, and tried to ignore the sounds of voices in the room next door. It worked fairly well, because he fell asleep and only woke when the alarm on his watch went off in order to give him enough time to get up and shower before laying out his suit for the night, medals and all. Honestly, he had misplaced two sets of them. He was reasonably certain that Dorothy must have had several dozen sets made just to spite him.

It seemed about right for Dorothy, to know that he did not enjoy the idea of leaning heavily on past achievements as a way to continue forward, and that in a way, His Excellency was dead. And had remained so since 195. 

The shower helped, and putting on a good suit, more modern way of preparing for battle, this new kind of battle that he occasionally was brought out to fight. He combed his hair, added some gel and then made sure that he had a good knife in his pocket.

No one could overestimate the usages of a good knife.

By the time he put the finishing touches on his tie (a Balthus knot, which Wufei called pretentious and Treize insisted was elegant) and got his waistcoat neatly buttoned, he was as ready as he was going to get. He had good timing, too, because there was a knock on his hallway door.

Treize swung the door open, and his heart clenched in pure animal response before he caught an instinctive half a step backward and then stepped forward instead, into the hallway, pulling his door closed behind him loudly and then walking past him into the hallway with a glance at his watch. "Colonel, hello. You know, I was trying to find where I knew your name from. The battle for the Marius plant." Where Treize's forces had won, keeping Earth's hold on a key resource, keeping it away from the colonies.

"Indeed. I do remember that battle quite well." Kirill's face was twisted into something like amusement. "Welcome back to L3, your Excellency. Shall we go down to dinner?"

Well fuck. Fucking fuck, but it was early in the games to be worried yet, wasn't it? And the man showing up outside of his door, that was a direct power play, a flex of _I know where you are_ meant to scare him. Meant to make him panic and not pay attention. "Yes. But perhaps we should await the vice minister and her entourage."

"Oh, I'm quite sure they'll be all right without our guidance." Smooth, but no. Very much no, and Kirill's smile turned cruel as he leaned forward just about the time that the neighboring door opened.

"Colonel Kirill," Relena greeted, her voice cool, a warning in and of itself. "I see you seem to have decided to lead us down to the dining room. I do assure you that we could find it for ourselves. I've been here before."

After the last time, after Wufei had killed Dekim; after they had run for it. He turned, and walked casually to Quatre's door, knocking softly. "Mr. Winner, Colonel Kirill from the L3 delegation is here to escort us to the dining room." Fuck. Fuck he was going to spend the entire night at the end of his tether, that was just excellent.

It wasn't a surprise when the door opened immediately. "Ah, hello, Treize. Am I running late?"

Not even one second.

"Nah, man, they thought we needed this fancy guy right here to show us where to go, right?" Duo grinned up at the man and lightly buffeted his shoulder. "Good to have someone to lead the way, right?"

The man lost none of his composure, seemingly pleased to have his charges all in one place to escort. "We are formal observers of protocol on L3. I thought it best to spare you any mistakes tonight. Come." He waited for appropriate group motion to the elevator, and Treize focused on Wufei warm in the king bed beside him that morning, face mushed into his shoulder and one funny indeterminable knot in his hair that he had taken the time to brush out once they were both upright, because the intimacy of sitting there and doing that was heartwarming. He held onto the thought as they entered the elevator and he felt the Colonel settle into an at-ease posture beside him.

God, he hated him. Despised him, and he was comforted when Duo rudely pushed between them. "Sorry, gentleman, just making way for the lady." Never mind that they were standing at the back of the elevator, because Duo looked up at Kirill blandly. 

War was one thing. And war crimes, there were all sorts, but there were _lines_ , lines he didn't let his units cross. He fixed his eyes on the front of the elevator, while Relena and Quatre entered, while it slowly moved down, while Duo bumped against him as a welcome buffer. He'd left his meds in the bathroom, and that was a damn shame.

At least he knew where they were and could safely come back to his room and take them. He told himself that all the way down, as Duo kept looking up at Kirill and smiling at him, trying to draw him into conversation.

Dear god, he needed a drink.

The dining hall was packed, with seats reserved for them at the head table, and that was a show of force as well. _Look at our best and our brightest, our scientists, our soldiers, our ruling class, our staff,_ and it was like a holiday party on Earth only boring, with military uniforms, and men and women in suits, and everything was tamped down, a warning to them if they were paying attention even as they took their seats. There was some light lively music playing in the background, and Marat was seated across from him, thankfully, and Quatre to his left, Duo to his right and Relena's left. Their Colonel directly across from Relena, and another bright-eyed red-haired woman across from Quatre.

"Good evening." The woman offered them a dimpled smile. "I'm Sasha, it's lovely to meet you." She wasn't very old, and Treize idly wondered if someone had the idea that he enjoyed redheads, or perhaps that Quatre did. If so, the gender was wrong, at least for Quatre. On his part, he'd taken up monogamy for some years and was not inclined to change anything about his current circumstances, certainly not for a one-off with a pretty redhead who might as well kill him as crawl into bed with him.

Possibly she would crawl into bed with him and then kill him, just for sport. "Sasha, Good to meet you." He wasn't going to allow her to drop formalities, and she already knew who he was. "And your role in the delegation is?"

"I'm part of the security force." Yes, that was definitely a woman who could kill him for sport. Possibly all of them. "Small but mighty, I believe is the phrase?"

He cut his eyes over to Duo, and nodded in agreement. "I'm sure you are." And he would have little to discuss with her as he had no interest in her very pretty deadly charms. 

He hated having been trained to socialize appropriately at dinner parties. A bit of time was bought by Kirill standing up, tapping a glass with the side of a knife. "Ladies and gentleman, I would like to welcome all of you to L3-X18999 for our discussion. May it be successful." With that, he raised his wineglass and everyone else did the same.

"We look forward to reaching a satisfactory solution for all parties," Relena declared, standing up. Treize eyed the wine, as everyone took their sips. It looked like a dull red, a bit dark. When he tasted it, it had the kick of something he'd have quite enjoyed before the nanites, mostly because it would have left him solidly drunk off of his ass, rather than warmly buzzed.

Beside him, Quatre smiled and drank from his water glass instead. At least that meant two of them would be reasonably sober, he hoped.

"That's got the kick of a mule," Duo muttered. "Holy crap."

"It's lissyth," Sasha advised. "It comes from a sort of hybrid plum that we've been growing recently.”

"It's quite good," he said with mock interest in the drink, taking another sip before setting the glass down. The waitstaff was starting to circulate with appetizers.

"We do our best. Of course, we aren't allowed to export it under the current laws. We're hoping that if we become fully independent, we can also make independent trade agreements with different partners. It could become quite the industry."

"I think Napue currently holds the title for that, though a plum gin is quite novel..." It was terrible, so of course he took another sip, and enjoyed an appetizer which he hoped was cheese and some sort of dead mammal, and caught Kirill smiling down the line at him.

If that bastard had thought that this would remotely affect him, he was going to enjoy showing him that it wouldn't. 

"Well." She didn't sound as if she had liked that response very much. "Doubtless it does, but we'll see how things go, hm?"

"It's a bit..." He took another sip thoughtfully. "Musty. That's certainly a quality. You don't know what you're missing, Quatre." He was sure from the way he looked at him that the other man read his sarcasm well.

He hid it well, his smile kind. "Yes, I'm sure. As you're aware, most of the population of L4 is historically from the Middle East. While very few people continue to practice religion, particularly in the colonies, some of the habits have continued to be observed. I'm afraid that if I even tried sipping it, I wouldn't enjoy it very much. All things considered."

"No, no, of course. Forgive me." 

Before he could say anything else, Marat started to talk. "Unfortunately it is our habit not to talk about work at these dinners, though I know Earth custom might be different. Have you been here before, Mr. Winner?"

"Unfortunately, no. I'm afraid that as my father's only son, he preferred to try and keep me closer to home. Since L3-X18999 was only completed to habitable levels a few years ago, it wasn't deemed safe enough for me to travel for a few years after completion, and since then I've been a bit busy," Quatre demurred. "No time for fun travel, I'm afraid, although I'm sure it's a lovely colony."

"But you spend quite a bit of time going back and forth between L4 and Earth. You're in business with His Excellency's..."

"Partner," Treize supplied smoothly. "I thought we weren't discussing business?" He glanced at Sasha as if to get her to agree along.

"Of course, of course," Marat murmured. "I just meant to say that surely you'd seen some interesting places in your many travels."

Quatre's smile was sweet, kind, and a vicious lie if you were opposing him, which Treize thought covered this situation quite well. "Oh, quite a few! I've travelled over most of the Earth at this point." Although he'd most often been fighting or destroying whatever military bases he came across, that was a legitimate statement. "I don't think I could choose a favorite."

"Have either of you ever been off the colony?" Treize asked, turning it back to them both. 

"Never, unfortunately," Sasha declared. "My family was supposed to, but we never got around to it." The Eve Wars, he knew, and imagined her pulling a stiletto from her dress to shank him if he gave her a chance.

"Earth really is beautiful," Quatre offered, sipping from his water glass. "If you ever have the opportunity to go, you should. Space is beautiful, too, but it's very different, I think. Especially if you're colony born and bred, it just has a special sort of appeal."

"I love space," Duo offered, throwing out a cutting grin. It was rather unfortunate that he was still drinking the rotgut. "There's nothing quite like getting out there and drifting in it."

Treize knew what he meant, but simultaneously thought a man would have to be insane to enjoy that drift for very long. Insane or stuck because his mech had gone to hell, which would honestly lead to insanity.

"That's true," Quatre agreed, and Treize wondered if it took a certain kind of crazy to be a Gundam pilot.

He took his time looking between the two of them, and took a long swig of his drink that drained the glass. "Mmm, no, not at all. Perhaps that's something only the colony born can really enjoy."

"It's entirely possible. Wufei isn't at all bothered by it, nor Heero, nor Triton." Which was a little weird to hear, Treize thought, but calling him Trowa probably wasn't a good idea on L3.

Sasha's head tilted. "I know the name Wufei." Her green eyes darted toward Treize. "But I don't know Heero or Triton?"

"They're friends. I'm sure you have extensive dossiers on all of us," Treize smiled at both her and Marat, "so perhaps you could both tell us more about yourselves."

"Of course, of course. I'm a councilman on the Junta. Colony-raised, although I was born on another part of the cluster, of course, since this one is so new. New being relative." He smiled, because that was true. This particular cluster was less than twenty years old. "My family is in a colony as well, actually. We farm, mostly. Well, as much as farming can be called that, naturally."

"I moved here after Dekim Barton was murdered. There was a great influx of people from elsewhere in L3 who arrived to repair the stability of X18999 when that happened," Sasha said, leaving Treize with an urge to look under the table and make sure she didn't have a gun pointed at him. 

"That's good to hear, though I believe it could've used the influx of stability much sooner than that," Treize deadpanned. Ahh, she was so young. It was impossible for her to keep her face from screwing up in annoyance, although when Duo laughed, she did jump.

"Ah, man, you wanna talk about unstable? I'm from L2. That's a lot of instability in one place, gotta tell you."

"How has the recovery effort been?" Marat asked, fixing his gaze on Duo, since he was talking. "I mean, I hear in the media streams that it's improving, but really..."

"Pretty amazing, actually. There was this whole..." Duo waved a hand. "...effort made to get the scientific community up to par, and the leader of the project was a raging atheist. So at first we were a little worried one of the religious factions was probably gonna, like. Crucify them all or something, but man, he's insanely smart, right? The kind of smart that scares me a little, to be honest, and that's saying something." It really was. Duo was one of those scary intelligent types, although he hid it well. They all did. "And like, vicious and angry, too, I'm pretty sure he managed to cow the entire colony. Like. Every single bit of it. And everybody's so grateful to have working colony clusters that they've started to reign in their bullshit."

"McKay was quite a find," Treize agreed, "and now that he's started, I don't believe he'll stop helping as long as he's alive. This is the kind of help ESUN would like to offer you. Ah, I'm sorry -- I digress to work topics myself."

"It is the unfortunate nature of the beast," Marat said. "We spend more time working than not working, so it's easier to revert to talking about work, which for most of us involves politics."

And there was no subject he could turn to without throwing salt into their eyes. His delightful murdering partner? His daughter? Tinkering in his workshop as a known mech designer.

Treize reached for the carafe -- for fuck's sake, who put what was essentially rotgut in an open carafe? -- and poured himself another glass. "Perhaps we should find a conversational topic that won't be an accidental minefield."

"So!" Duo declared. "How 'bout them Blitzers?"

Oh, god, he needed more liquor (and possibly drugs) just to make it through dinner. He managed to hold in on the conversation by stubbornly only suggesting Luxembourgish teams, knowing full well that Racing FC Union Lëtzebuerg was both the oldest club in the nation and that they hadn't won a championship since A.C. 15. It was a point of pride, and Duo had stared at him and laughed so hard that it was worth the ribbing he would probably get for the rest of his life.

By the time they made it to dessert, everyone was fairly well sozzled. Treize was reasonably certain that he and Quatre were the only sober people in the entire room until he glanced down the way and saw how Kirill was watching him.

He lifted his half empty glass to the man in an aggressive salute. Across from Kirill, Relena was semi-alert. God help them, he and Quatre were going to have to herd both her and Duo up to their room. "Excellent choice of rotgut, Colonel. Compared to the paint thinner my men accused me of drinking."

"Good to know, Treize." Insulting, the way that he said that name, and Relena turned, her glass sloshing across his uniform.

"Oh my goodnesh. 'm very s-sh-sorry. I don' do a lot of drinkin'," she told him, patting ineffectually at his uniform with her cloth napkin and spreading it everywhere.

Duo waved a hand. "Hey. Hey, y'all. I, I think it's time t'take Relena to... to bed."

"Yes, I think it is." He stood up at the same time Quatre did, and moved to 'help' Duo up, whether he needed it or not. The party itself had petered out, and L3's show of stature had mostly slipped off drunk. Marat had disappeared, though Sasha was still watching with keen eyes. There was always a devoted something, wasn't there? An Aide-de-camp. "We'll see you, 0800 was it?"

"Yes." And if that sounded short, well. He _was_ covered in plum wine.

"Heyyyy, whoa. This stuff must've been super strong," Duo declared, fumbling as he stood up and nearly falling over Treize. "Man, wow. Heero would haaaate that stuuuuff."

"I'm starting to hate it myself," Treize said lightly, supporting the small man with one solid guiding hand as Quatre helped Relena with somewhat less iron in the motion. "Thank you for an excellent night, Colonel." And rot in hell.

"In the morning, then." He still sounded annoyed, and if nothing else that made Treize feel a little pleased, if not with himself, then with his companions, all of whom had been rather unexpectedly pleasurable in their responses and behavior.

It had helped make the evening less painful, though getting everyone into the elevator had been a bit unseemly. Still, most of the L3 delegation, barring Kirill, had also been deeply in their cups. If the plan had been to incapacitate all of the small ESUN delegation, the man had miscalculated. 

Duo had enough sense to wield his room key when they were back on the top floor. "Are you going to be all right, Quatre?"

That question was met with a smile, easy and amused. "I'll be just fine. I expect the only one we need to worry about is Relena, and she'll just have a hangover come morning."

Duo chuckled. "That stuff's got nothing on poitín, I'm telling you. I mean, it's nice, but definitely not quite up to snuff compared to the hooch you find in some Catholic diocese, y'know." 

Quatre passed Relena to Duo, and pulled out his own keycard to let himself into his room . "No, apparently. Now we know what we have to look forward to tomorrow." More games, and he was tired, wired, feeling aggressive and tight at the same time. He fished his own key out, for all that he was sharing an unlocked door with Duo and the vice minister. "In the morning, then."

"Good night, all." Quatre sounded reasonably cheerful, but then, he wasn't going to be the one with a hangover come morning.

He loitered at his door, opening it but not quite stepping in until he was sure Duo and Relena had securely crossed into theirs as well. There was no one else in the hallway, but his hackles were up, and he wasn't a man to mistrust his gut.

Not given how many insane decisions he'd made out of trust in his gut, and ZERO. 

Stepping into the room was a relief except for the tension headache he'd been staving off and the sense of nervous sickness seeped in. He undressed, changed into pajamas, tested that the adjoining door was still unlocked. He could hear Duo and Relena rattling around next door, as he picked up a datapad and his sunglasses.

A quick check of the time showed that it was mid-afternoon in Bath, and so he flicked up the app and hit the link.

It took a few moments for Wufei to answer, but when he did he was breathless and laughing, hair a mess, Mariemaia squealing as they fought for the datapad so that one of them could greet him first. "Hey, hey, I..."

"Father, Father, Wufei is terrible! I wanted to say hello first!"

He settled in the bed, balancing the datapad on his knees as he pulled at the duvet. It was a relief to see them both, happy and in the relative grimy sunlight of England. "Hello to you both -- it looks like I'm missing the fun."

"We made cake!" Mariemaia laughed, and snuggled in beside Wufei. "Your favorite one, that's your punishment for being gone."

Wufei ruffled her hair and she groaned in annoyance. "And we'll be sure to make it the day that you get home," he promised. "How is it?"

Treize leaned back against the pillows, and fussed with them as he looked for an appropriate answer. "Nerve-wracking. Dinner was harrowing, and we start negotiations at 0800 tomorrow."

"Say the word, and I'll..." Wufei began.

"Send someone else," Mariemaia interrupted, giving him a look that was purely Treize.

"Quite. We're all very alert to the situation here. Their head of delegation is..." He shrugged one shoulder, studying their faces; he so very badly wanted to be home and not there, not there with his nerves strung tight. "So you made a cake. Did Wufei make it or did you?"

His daughter had that sly look that he delighted in seeing. "I was an integral part of the process."

"Which is to say that I made it and she handed me ingredients. And she's our very smart girl, because neither of us are coming anywhere near there, but I will make very many calls."

"We're only scheduled to be here for another three days. If we don't make progress tomorrow..." He lifted a hand into the camera view and tilted one hand side to side. "Duo is tracking what needs to be tracked."

Wufei seemed to consider it. "Okay, he's sufficiently paranoid. No one would think it, looking at him."

"All of you survived the Eve Wars by being exceptionally cunning and flexible. I'm glad he's here. I still wish I weren't. So. Show off this cake, and help me take my mind off of it," he requested, pulling up a smile.

"Run get the cake," Wufei encouraged, and Mariemaia rose obediently enough, leaving them alone for a couple of minutes. "Seriously. Are you okay?"

He shifted what hand was holding the datapad. "Honestly, no. But I'll survive. They're playing fucking games and they think we haven't noticed."

"Well, then they're stupid. You're as close to Machiavelli as any living breathing human could be, and Quatre is possibly the second closest." That seemed to mollify Wufei's worry somewhat, and then Mariemaia came in with a prettily decorated chocolate cake with layers of whipped cream, chocolate ganache, and chocolate dipped strawberries.

That was rather lovely looking, and it would have been better than what he'd eaten, or drank. "That's all I need to see to know I should hurry home. Who frosted it?"

"I was an integral part of the process," his daughter assured him again, and Wufei hid his face in his hand as he hid his laugh.

He laughed, a real laugh as he watched them both through the camera. His family, _his_ , precious to him and worth doing anything to keep an L3 rebellion from spreading to Earth. Or god forbid, even just the signature of an extradition treaty, and everything would come crashing apart.

Protecting them, both of them, was imperative.

It settled any uneasiness that he might have been feeling about his plan.

The rest of their conversation was easy and fun, filled with affection. Mari mentioned that Peter had gotten a helmet, so at least something good had come out of the accident. Maybe he wouldn't suffer any further head injuries, at least. It helped settle his head better, settle his heart. It soothed the panicky feeling, even as he started to get drowsy listening to them, sitting in the dark room with his eyes on the screen. "I'm afraid I have to call it a night. It's an early day tomorrow. I'll call around this time tomorrow, all right?"

"Love you, Father." Mari gave a little wave.

Wufei leaned forward, and he could see the affection there. "Eh, I guess I like you enough to keep you."

"Good. I love you both. Have a good day tomorrow, and I'll talk to you then." He could have lingered for hours, but it was easier to disconnect the call after one last wave to them both.

For a long moment, he sat there, just holding the sunglasses. He was making a conscious choice. It was the best choice he could make, and he knew it. Treize knew that this was what he had to do to protect everything he held dear, so he raised the glasses and slid them into place.

Building the Epyon system had been life changing; taking the blueprints from ZERO and modifying it had been an obvious choice when he'd first done it. After his rebirth, his return, reading about Dorothy puppeting the mobile suits with it had twigged something. It didn't need to be a cockpit, and it didn't need to be reduced down to war machines. There were all sorts of hazardous jobs where a mental augmentation could, would save lives. Pilots, terraformers on Mars, there were so many options, so he'd begun to work idly on the system again, in a new form factor, a softer version of the system.

It was like embracing an old friend, that whisper of ZERO that haunted him sometimes growing clearer as he started to see his options for the next few days.

* * *

At 0530, he woke up and rolled out of bed. Not refreshed, that would have been a terrible lie, but with a sense of peace about how the next few days were going to proceed. He brushed his teeth, drank one of the chalky-sweet-salty tasting mineral supplements mixed with water because his left hip was aching, and changed clothes to go for a jog. 

He had the time, the urge, and the understanding to trust his gut given everything he'd worked through the night before.

There would be time to talk to the others when he returned.

Once he had pulled on a ragged old battalion t-shirt stating _You Yell, We Shell_ and a pair of joggers with a hole in the outer seam that Mariemaia despised and kept threatening to turn into cleaning rags, he headed downstairs and out into the colony. The morning was lovely, as expected -- temperature perfect and the air not too damp or too dry. It felt good to run, felt good just to be moving, especially after having felt cooped up for days.

The urge to be home wasn't abating. It was a nervous, gnawing need that lingered at the back of his mind as he followed a sidewalk on the way out of the hotel, and turned left, falling into a relaxed pace that would let him stretch and open up his lungs. Dr. DuMaurier had suggested that his body might respond with PTSD-like symptoms even if his mind didn't, and that it was important to treat himself well while there. Which was ridiculous when it was a mission, and if all went well or all went badly, he could no longer have to worry about being on L3 longer than three or four days.

The sun hadn't started to 'come up' but there was a light haze that suggested something coming up over a horizon. His time on the colonies had almost entirely been for battle purposes, seldom stopping long enough to admire the phenomena they had created. It was special, different, and being able to take the time to be amazed by it felt good to him. Wufei had been born and lived with this his entire life, and so had almost everyone that he knew. Seeing them on Earth and how delighted they were by things that Treize hadn't precisely taken for granted but perhaps had looked at and not seen in quite the same way was a unique experience and it made him grateful for all of the small things that he sometimes overlooked.

He set the timer on his watch, and started to ease his pace up a little, measuring the gaps in the pavers with his eyes and his pace, getting comfortable with it again before studying the scenery around him. The city, large town, showed the hallmarks of care, not abandonment. The people who lived there hadn't given up, and they probably weren't in line with the current ruling Junta. There was a bakery up on the right where the owner was unlocking the door, chatting with a staff person, and the other little signs of a functioning town coming to life. Cop on another corner sitting in their car, keeping warm, idling out to the end of a shift and tapping on his datapad, probably entering a report.

He heard steady footsteps behind him, a bit too fast for just jogging. It made the hair on the back of his neck rise, his nerves keying up in response before he heard Duo. "Dude, you do not run away from your security detail! You wake 'em up first!"

He slowed, pivoted and stretched a little, waiting on the corner as Duo got closer. "You needed the sleep and I needed the silence. How are you?"

Having caught up, Duo stopped and started stretching a bit with him. "Not too bad. Nothing I can't live with. That stuff was potent, but nothing near as shitty as pruno or as potent as an old Irish Catholic dude cooks up as hooch."

Or whatever Duo's likely augmentation, whatever it might be, did for his system. He wondered how much each pilot knew about the others' situation, and how much any of them knew about him. Or Wufei, for that matter. Or did everyone politely ignore the issue when Heero Yuy had been self-destructed more times than OZ intelligence bothered to count?

At one point, his officers had thought Pilot 01 was three different people, he'd suffered and survived such absurd things. 

"Glad to hear it. I suppose you're joining me now?"

"Yep. Gotta keep an eye on you, man. Do you know what Wufei would do to me if I didn't?" Duo shuddered. "I've spent a month in a cell with him, and I have to say that I value my life. Dude basically meditated himself into suspended animation."

There were quite a few ways to respond to that, but Treize had never been one for talking about his relationships. Within them, yes, about them? That wasn't how discretion worked. He started to move again, starting out with the easier pace as he took another turn. "He has exquisite self-control -- he hasn't smothered me with a pillow in my sleep yet."

"Yeah, I lose track of you and the best I can hope for is to die in my sleep before he catches up to me," Duo snorted, keeping in step with him. That must be difficult, because he was nearly a foot shorter than Treize, but he didn't show any sign of it being. "I'm too young and pretty to die at the hands of a pissed off pilot."

"There's so many ways to die out here," he commented casually. And then he jumped the curb and took another turn because he both knew where he was going and had no idea at all, and it was freeing. "You know they're finding this situation untenable."

Duo sounded annoyed when he spoke. "They're whiny crybaby bitches. This place is fucking nice. You could raise kids here. There's nobody dying on every corner, and I haven't seen anybody raiding the garbage can just to stave off starvation for another day or three."

"The buildings are cared for," he agreed with a gesture. "The streets are clean. But they have grievances they want to solve with war. And how better to provoke ESUN than to kill a Vice Minister?"

"Guess you'd know," Duo replied, and, well. He had been expecting it, but it was still painful to contemplate. "She's still pretty fucked up about that, y'know."

"Lieutenant Colonel Une was being controlled by a Goa'uld. It hadn't been to plan." He stopped running and found himself staring up at a building just on the outskirts of this particular district's block. "We retrieved her, and I executed both her and the parasite. I know that's no comfort."

"Huh. Fucking snakes." Duo seemed to be easier about it then, or maybe he was just letting it go. "Haven't heard a lot from them lately. Think we've managed to get most of them wiped out. They tried to infiltrate us a while ago. Didn't go well for 'em. You ready to head back?"

"You need to tell Relena and Quatre to come armed to today's session. They're going to capture us, and we need to be able to get ourselves out. Marat is a weak point in the Junta; we may be able to talk sense into him."

There was no shocked response to it. "Kind of figured we'd get into something, but where are you getting your information?" He cast a side eyed glance at Treize.

"Modified Epyon system." He stretched his shoulders slightly, left hip still threatening to snag him up if they stopped moving for long. "You didn't think I'd agree to come back to an obvious trap and just _see what happens_."

Duo whistled. "Damn, son. You're either brave or crazy. Maybe both." He stretched and then turned to head back the way they came. "Right then. I'll make sure we're all prepped. They're always happy after they find a couple or three things."

They started the jog back, an easy clip that allowed him to appreciate the buildings around them. "That's what I'm counting on. Do your best and we'll be fine." He knew it wasn't comforting from a man who had embraced his death from ZERO's last vision to him. What he was planning to embrace this time... wasn't going to kill him.

It was simply going to be unpleasant.

They jogged back to the hotel, conversation passing between breaths as they ran. It seemed idle enough to anyone passing, but Treize got the sense that Duo was working out exactly what he wanted to conceal on his person and how he was going to do it. He didn't ask any questions -- it was better not to know, he thought.

They were each going to be islands in what followed, and all they could do was prepared. He felt better for the jog, and didn't feel up to the stairs, so there was that absurd post exercise moment of getting into an elevator while sweating profusely. "Best of luck."

Duo grinned at him, wiping at his forehead. "I'm probably half Irish. Don't need luck, especially not when I've been forewarned."

"I always thought the saying was 'if it weren't for bad luck, you'd have no luck at all'." He fished out his keycard, and smiled as he swiped himself into his room. There were a hundred small things he needed to do; take another mineral supplement, hot shower, get dressed. Pack his bag, and leave it neatly at the end of the bed, pack his briefcase for the meeting, for all that there was no sense to it.

"I survived L2," Duo called as he entered his own room. "And the Eve Wars. See you in thirty."

Which was an excellent point, actually.

As long as he kept moving, he wouldn't dwell long on the options and actions that had been flashed before him. Within thirty minutes, he was clean, dressed, composed, and ready to join the rest of their small contingent for a light continental breakfast, diplomacy, and treachery, in that order.

Relena looked a little worse for wear, but the others all seemed fine. Quatre was smiling, and his suit was neatly pressed, all clean lines. It was clear that he couldn't be hiding anything in it, which meant that he absolutely was hiding something in it. Duo, on the other hand, was his usual chaos. He'd opted for that ridiculous priest outfit that he'd worn during the war, and Treize could only imagine what he was carrying aside from the obvious sidearm and a small medical kit of some variety. Relena was, of course, neatly dressed in an appropriate diplomatic manner. She was the only one Treize didn't suspect of carrying anything at all, so he could only imagine what Duo had managed to hide on her, either.

"Good morning," Quatre greeted, offering him a sweet dimpled smile. "I hope everyone slept well."

"Not bad at all." Treize tucked his hands casually into his pockets. He, on the other hand, was completely and blissfully unarmed, because he had already worked through an iteration of that, where fear had spiked so hard he couldn't breathe, and sure, he'd stabbed their Colonel deep under his arm with a good quality pocket knife, but he'd lost control of the knife and had ended up with it back, right in the middle of his chest.

It was much safer to leave it tucked in his suitcase, along with his sunglasses.

"It was the getting up that was horrible," Relena mumbled. It was clear that she was still suffering a bit. "Thank you very much for the mineral supplement. It's helped quite a bit."

"Add in some scrambled eggs and toast and you'll be fine," Duo told her, even if she turned a bit green at the edges.

"I've been using that stuff for hangovers for decades. You're quite welcome." They looked like a jolly lot on the hallway CCTV, but he could tell they were all keyed up as they headed to the elevator. At least their gracious host was nowhere to be seen; he was likely putting his finishing touches on his plan.

They managed to make it through breakfast, Relena drinking a weak tea and eating dry toast, Quatre giving a sad sigh about the coffee not being strong enough. Duo made everyone eat a banana, too, and then they got up and made their way to meeting room 12A, which was set up with a long table and a number of quite comfortable chairs.

He'd worked through a version, too, where they had resisted fiercely right there, and it echoed for a moment, overlapped; chairs broken, blood on the long table, Relena dead right there, having slouched to the floor. And then it was gone, a brief blink of thought that he dismissed as they took their seats and settled in calmly. Datapads and folders, and Marat coming in, smiling and providing additional information chips about the trade treaties they were seeking, the sorts of reasonable things that their delegation could help with.

It was a bit surprising when Duo fiddled with the medical kit during the meeting, pulling out a machine and pricking his finger as though it were an everyday event, the glucometer informing him that his blood sugar was as it should be. No one thought twice about it when he put it all back together and shrugged. It didn't even interrupt the meeting. If Treize hadn't known that he wasn't diabetic, he'd have thought nothing of it, to be honest. It was an interesting bit of show, something Duo wanted to keep close when it all went down, and that was brilliant of him. He paid it little attention, as they turned to the topic Kirill was championing -- resource sharing, particularly energy and fuel, and political governance.

By the time lunch came around, it was clear that they were all tired of wrangling with their disagreements. Lunch consisted of sandwiches and some sort of fried chip thing that vaguely resembled plantains but weren't quite that, and Marat talked idly about the nutritional value of them, everyone drinking the tea they were served as though they weren't worried about it at all.

As if they didn't know what was in it.

Quatre dropped off first, and then Relena, already suffering from her hangover and likely some dehydration, went quickly. Duo acted at being more impacted than he had been, but he was starting to go when Treize simply set his cup down in front of him while it happened, and raised his hands slightly in a gesture of surrender. "I'm not sure how you think this will improve the negotiations, but bravo."

And then he drifted off, blissfully unaware for at least a time of whatever they were going to do now.

When he woke, it was sudden; not gasping and sitting up but a perfect awareness. His eyes were closed, and he continued to breathe regularly, listening to see if anyone else happened to be in the room with him.

It was completely silent. Not even the rustle of bedding, not a movement near him. There was a familiarity to the smell of the place, and when he moved his shoulder slightly, testingly, he heard a familiar creak that made his heart sink. There was seeing something in Epyon, and then there was experiencing it, and he had choices. Lie there paralyzed with fear, with the terror that was making his stomach twist, and let it all wash over him, or get up and fight it all, every last piece of it.

Duo was right, and he wasn't sure if he was crazy or brave or neither; he sat up quickly, opening his eyes with gut wrenching certainty that he was back in that damn room, sitting on the hospital bed that he'd been unable to leave for years, or a decent facsimile of it. That damn false window, the cameras that he could now pick out.

Fuck, fuck fuck, it was unbearable, it was too much, and his heart was trying its best to jump out of his chest. He managed to get his knees pulled up, and pressed his forehead against them, struggling to breathe as the anxiety crawled up from his gut and clenched around his heart. "Oh fuck, fuck..." Not there, anywhere but there, and he'd been fine seeing it in ZERO, not fine, but okay, livable, but being there, smelling the familiar antiseptic hell and must of the place, took his legs out from under him.

He could play forward on all of the other scenarios he hadn't wanted to explore, and he knew when that door opened it wasn't going to be Wufei. It was never going to be what he'd wanted, no matter hard he'd played at it back home with Wufei.

It took a bit before he could remember the breathing exercises -- breathe in for four seconds, hold it for seven, breathe out for eight. Again. Again. Again, and he was shaking, trembling so hard that he could barely think. He could let go of his legs by the time he managed to get his breathing under control, but he knew how this would be. It would be a wave, rolling, and it would take him under. Let him back up when he managed to ignore it. Take him under again whenever it wanted.

And just as Wufei had said, it brought everything with it. He managed to swing his legs over the side of the bed, and he had to hold still as sense memory and snapshot images rolled over him, and he wished he didn't have a good memory, that he couldn't sift through any moment over the years and not come back with a thick handful of snapshot memories, spilling over him like sand.

Hah, sand, sandbags, and he started to laugh hysterically as he finally stood -- real legs, they were real, and they were his and they weren't going to disappear -- to try to rush for the fucking door.

When he realized what he was doing, his hands were bloody at the knuckles, at his fingertips. He'd obviously tried to open the door, and it hadn't worked. God, it hadn't worked, and he couldn't think, couldn't function, couldn't bear this goddamned room. He couldn't. It was, it was too much. It was more than he could bear, and he fell back, trying to remember how to breathe.

He had to remember to _breathe._

* * *

It had been hours. It had been hours and his adrenaline had actually found its limit, peaked and ebbed off as long as he kept his back against the door, eyes closed, shoulders curled slightly as if that would fucking help. His hands were already healing, though the bloody mess he'd made of the door and himself was there to stay, and he was trying very hard to focus. Breathe and feel himself, be in his body, be present though he wanted no such thing, except being separate from it was making everything worse because his body remembered what it had been to be in pieces, and his hips hurt. He couldn't stop thinking about how everything had looked bloody and hollowed out and missing, a concave shell of a lower half put back together with tubes and clamps and ongoing sepsis and he _remembered_ the worst of it, the pain and the fire that washed over everything.

He was thirsty and wrung out and he wanted to be home. He was never going to let Dorothy forget this ill-planned fiasco. He was never coming to this fucking colony again. He was never leaving Earth again. She owed him until she died and possibly thereafter.

This felt as if it would never end. Never, and why was it going on so long? He knew that it had to be, he had told Duo as much. They'd all known how long it would take, he had told them what needed doing, but god, why?

And then the door he was leaning against opened -- he pivoted, proud of himself for fighting off the fear long enough to keep his weight against the door and shove, trying to get the crack open and more quickly, only to have the heavy metal slam hard, cracking his right knee and right hand fiercely between the reinforced door jamb and three inches of solid steel. Everything went white, and he lost his footing and fell back down onto the floor while Dekim's Colonel stepped in.

"Ah, Treize. That was quite foolish. Did you think you would have such an opportunity that I would just allow you to leave?" Fuck.

_Fuck._

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Well that was what he tried to say, curled up on his side and not trying to actually touch either injury despite the horrible natural reflex to clutch at it.

Kirill laughed. There wasn't a lot of humor to it. "I missed you. Even when you're screaming, you always toss back epithets and anger. Such a delight."

He had no memory of that, but the man's casual glee in it left him feeling cold when he was already trying to keep himself calm because his fucking hand was mangled, and he needed to fix it. "What did I do to you?"

The man was still smiling as he knelt close by him. "Why would you have had to do anything? I enjoy your screams. I'll enjoy them even more when your little pilot comes to rescue you and I get to execute him."

That viscerally hurt him, but he shook his head, finally clutching at his injured hand because he couldn't help it anymore. "Not coming. Not coming. Not going to happen. Fuck you."

Treize wasn't sure he'd ever seen a smile that cold, and he'd known a lot of pure reptiles. "Oh, it will happen. And I can't wait to listen to you scream because I'll fuck you as he dies. I truly have missed you."

He shook his head fiercely, focusing on breathing, on inhaling and exhaling and not letting the panic rise up. He didn't remember any of it, just that handful of snapshot images and pain and oh Christ, he hasn't been able to look at the other more than hundred videos.

He just hadn't thought very hard about them.

"I thought I'd come and see you, just to let you know what I have planned. Just to give you time to think about it." And when he reached down and stroked a thumb along his jaw, Treize's breath stuttered to a stop with the sheer panic.

He remembered that, some part of him remembered that, and he started to shake, pain and fear winning. "No, no, please don't, I, I..."

"Oh, yes. I'll be back to see you later tonight." Later, fuck. Fuck. "And I will enjoy you again, just as soon as my plan is properly in place."

Fuck, fuck. He was still touching him, and he twisted away, struggling for a moment. "What plan, what, you're not going to win..."

"I'm going to have everything I want. And that includes you." One hand slapped him, hard. "So get used to it."

That simply wasn't going to happen. He closed his eyes tightly, and curled up around his smashed hand, trying to block everything out. There was no 'get used' to that.


	2. Chapter 2

Treize hadn't called, and he hadn't answered when Wufei tried to call him.

He would have liked to give it the benefit of the doubt. He would have, but he couldn't. He just couldn't, and so he'd left Mariemaia in the library with the excuse that he needed to shower, and gone upstairs to call Trowa and Heero.

He had known that the trip was a terrible idea; but there was expecting it and then there was finding out the hard way when his partner went missing. Treize was terribly attached to his datapads and he had certainly caught him with one in the bath more times than he cared to think about with some schematic up for reading and a media stream playing at the same time. It wasn't going to be a false alarm. 

"Wufei." Trowa answered the call first from what looked like a control center.

Not a good sign.

"I left Mariemaia downstairs so she wouldn't hear anything because I assumed that by now you and Heero were also aware that something has gone wrong." Blatantly and flatly stated. "I want in on whatever you're planning."

Trowa tilted the camera and he could see Heero in profile, typing furiously. "Relena's subcutaneous tracker stopped sending its regular update hours ago. They would have to be underground for that to occur."

Fuck. "I know where they are." He could pretty well guarantee it. "I'm guessing you do, too. What's the plan?"

"We are boarding a Preventer transit vehicle to L3. We do not have flight clearance. You're not going." Trowa said, looking directly at him.

"I'm going." It might take him longer; he'd have to get a flight to China, pull Nataku out of the underground storage he'd arranged for her. "Whether it's with you or following. If it's gone the way I think it has, you'll need me." Because Treize would be falling to pieces. He didn't want anyone else to deal with that; he didn't want Treize to have to deal with anyone but him. Treize had wanted _it_ to be him, desperately wanted it. Wufei didn't know everything that had happened, but he knew enough.

And if he had to fly a Gundam to a colony, there was going to be a problem.

Trowa looked over his shoulder at Heero, expression tight and thoughtful. "You have always done as you wanted," Heero said. "Get a flight here, we leave in five hours."

"Roger that." With a flick of his fingers, Wufei exited the call.

Mariemaia's voice startled him when it came. "I knew something was wrong."

Well, hell. Hell. That wasn’t how he had wanted to explain anything to her. "I'm going to get him back," he told her.

She was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, mouth tight. "You're going back to L3."

"Yes." He wasn't going to lie to her about that. "I'll call the school, get extra security set up. I won't be gone long, and I'll come back with your father."

"They've kidnapped him again." It wasn't a question, just a concerned statement as she frowned in the doorway. "It... they did horrible things to him. And everything's been so good here."

Reaching out an arm, he gestured for her to come forward. It wasn't a surprise when she hurried over, launching herself onto the bed beside him. "I know. I know, it's going to be fine. I'm going to get him back." And if he couldn't, he was going to kill people.

Fuck.

He shouldn't go. They had a daughter. He shouldn't go.

But he had to go.

* * *

Sometimes Duo Maxwell wondered just how stupid other people were.

Most of the time, he was just grateful for it.

They'd drugged them, not unexpectedly. Right, okay, and then they'd finally woken up. At least he assumed everybody else woke up, because he sure as hell had awakened with a raging headache and was generally pissed. He was sure he wasn't getting out of this place without some effort because the door was a damn bulkhead.

What assholes.

So each of them in their own room, okay. They couldn't plot, which was smart of them because together they would've been out of there in point five seconds. That meant each of them was trying their own tactic to get out of there. Relena had lockpicks in her hair if they hadn't taken them, but there didn't seem to be anything to pick from that side of the door.

Well. Not a problem, he could handle it.

"Hey. Hey, y'all? Anybody seen my med pack?" Duo went over and knocked on the window that obviously wasn't a window. "Hello? I'm diabetic and epileptic, it's a shit combination, I've gotta tell you, so I'm gonna need my med pack."

No answer.

That wasn't much of a surprise, so he stepped back, sighed, shoulders dropping. "All right. All right."

He looked around and realized there was an open door, probably a bathroom. Pretty good for him, he thought, and he stepped into it, reaching up and into his hair when he realized that he couldn't see any cameras. Still, best to be careful, so he peed, washed his hands, and reached up to scratch his head. It didn't take much to work out the wire in there. It was thin and flexible, and it tore loose a couple of strands, but so what? He managed to get it wrapped in his palm before he went out again and started knocking on the window again.

"Hey! I really need my meds!"

Nothing. Crazy motherfuckers, he didn't even know if they were out there, and he was going to do it again, when he heard noise outside the damn solid door.

Hell yes.

"I'm not feeling so great." It was loud, but Duo was getting his garrote ready.

He just needed to keep his back to the window that was obviously used for observation. He could hear the idiot on the other side leaning against the door. "What's your problem?"

"I need my insulin. It's in my med pack, can you please bring it to me?" _Come on, buddy. Come on in, you know you wanna come in._

Maybe if he thought it hard enough at the guy it would actually work. "Fuck. Insulin? Fine."

"Yeah, it's in my med pack. There's a, there's something to keep it cool. I'm not feeling so good." He groaned, leaning down. "Man..."

The guy actually fucking went missing, which was complete bullshit, so he kept up the begging long enough that the door finally did open.

Groaning, Duo turned toward the door. "Please. Please," he groaned. "I, I need..."

And then the idiot came into the room.

Goddamn, that was stupid.

It had been a while since he'd had to kill somebody. Like a whole eight months, since that weird shit in Bolivia with the asshole who thought he was the new king of Os Estados Unidos. That had at least been pretty fucked up, but this was just dumb. He snapped the wire over the guy's head and cut right through his windpipe and then back.

When he was done, Duo shook his head. "Damn, man. You don't even have backup. That was pretty fucking stupid." Ah, but at least he was wearing black.

Once he was done, he did his best to wipe off his garrote on the dude's uniform (and who the hell had shorts as part of their uniform? Seriously, what even.) before he took a step over the bulkhead rim and started screwing around with their computer.

First he needed to release the locking mechanisms on all the doors. And places like that, organized places had one good failsafe -- prisons, hospitals, hellholes. The fire alarm. He took a minute to figure out where everyone probably was, and then he flicked the alarm on and stepped out into the hall.

He waited for the guards to come, to hit the hallway and run while he was checking doors. Relena's door swung open first, a damn relief, two doors down, and then Quatre's, which just seemed to have been stuck, and ah, there was his next target, another idiot in shorts who at least pulled a gun this time. Duo managed to flick one of the darts he'd had hidden in his hair his way, and he went down with it between both eyes.

"Hey, Quatre. How's it going, man?"

Quatre gave a soft laugh, and patted his shoulder lightly as he moved toward Relena, who looked pissed. "Let's go find Treize. Relena, are you all right?"

"As if I didn't already have a hangover, now we've been kidnapped?" Yeah, his girl was not pleased. "I need to hit something."

Duo couldn't keep the grin off of his face. "Damn, I love you. I reckon Heero and Trowa are probably on their way right now. Did you guys find your bags?"

Quatre nodded. "Right inside the observation rooms. Honestly, that was quite..."

"Stupid," Duo agreed.

"We'll check down this way if you want to...?" Quatre gestured for Duo to go in the other direction, because yeah, they would be okay if they split up, just to speed things along. There were a lot of thankfully empty cells.

"Roger that."

Relena held up a hand. "No, no. That's how people die in horror movies. We are not splitting up."

Quatre gestured down the hallway in either direction. "He's not here. Trowa said he was in the basement level, out of the way the last time."

"If I were planning on screwing with someone, I'd put them back in whatever place they escaped from," Relena decided. "So..."

Duo sighed. "So let's find the basement level." Shit. Wufei was gonna kill him if Treize came back all fucked up. It was sort of the guy's own fault, but Duo was pretty sure he was deeply fucked in the head. Had been since they'd rolled their first mission against OZ. But he made Wufei happy, somehow, when he wasn't pissing him off, and that was a weirdness he could get behind. 

They got all the way down to the end of the hallway and hit a stairwell. The fire alarm klaxons were still going off, and that was definitely going to draw panicked attention but maybe not. Maybe the place was lightly staffed for torture Tuesday.

There was nobody else on the stairs, so obviously nobody had taught these guys how to behave when shit was on fire. Honestly, sometimes Duo wondered about people. And right now, he wondered one hell of a lot.

"I'm going to vomit," Relena announced as they neared the bottom of the stairs. "Too much running, too much hangover."

"Okay, but we don't need to split up," he said urgently. "Or I go and Quatre stays with you." They got to the bottom of the stairs, and he just wanted to get out of there. And maybe fuck some people up.

"Oh, no. Just. Give me a moment." She swallowed hard and took a few deep breaths. "Right. Right, let's go. I'll vomit on the way if I need to."

Man, he hated it when she saw him kill people, and chances were good that was going to happen. She was a pacifist with a giant capital P, and he wasn't. They didn't talk about it, and Heero didn't talk about it and everything was hunky dory. He didn't want things suddenly not to be hunky dory.

There was a long fucking annoying hallway with a turn, and there was Counselor Marat badging into the door at the end.

Duo ran.

He could hear Treize sobbing, he could hear Quatre behind him, he could hear...

"Hooooly fucking shit." Duo stopped, blinking at the sight. "Relena, don't..."

Her hand was on his arm, and then she leaned over, and eurgh. Yeah. That wasn't good, but then, she probably hadn't seen anyone's brain before now.

At least not quite like that.

Marat was shaking, leaning up against the wall, and he was holding a gun which he'd apparently just used to bash the back of Kirill's head in with, because that shit didn't work like the movies if you cold cocked someone with a pistol hard enough. "Holy shit. Holy shit. He was going to rape, I mean, I just wanted him to stop, that's not what we were going to do, oh holy shit I think he's dead."

"Yeah, it's just not like that, man. I mean. Wow, you must have really hit him pretty hard." Because it had been a while since Duo had seen anything quite that bad. Actually. "So, I'm gonna need you to give me the gun, okay? Before you drop it."

Treize was sobbing, and Quatre stepped past Duo and Relena, going over and pushing Kirill's body onto the floor. And okay, yeah, he could better imagine how things have been going because the man's pants were open, and he had definitely died hard. And Treize's good suit was ripped and bloody, and he really did have a nice ass. Little pale, but round in all the right places and the problem was he shouldn't have been seeing it.

Marat dropped the gun on the floor just as Duo was getting his head together and almost had his hand on it. It went off, because who used a fucking safety anymore, and then Marat started to scream like a chihuahua because apparently he didn't understand what a gunshot sounded like in a small room.

"Well, that sucked," Duo sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "Everybody okay? Nobody was hit by the ricochet?"

"I'm fine," Relena said, and then vomited again, so Duo figured that meant for a given value of fine. "Oh my god, if you bastards ever do this again, I am going to rethink everything."

Marat was shaking and he had a hand over his mouth, and the only other noise in the room was Quatre trying to get the former ruler of the goddamned Earth 10% less hysterical, while the other former ruler of the entire fucking planet painted the floor in plum and bits of chewed up egg.

Christ he loved his job.

He could hear chaos coming, and so Duo picked up the gun and hissed at Relena. "Get your ass in here!" Because chances were excellent that he'd have to shoot someone, and all right, she had definitely seen enough.

She moved into the room, and he didn't close the door because then they'd be fucking locked in together, but he eased it mostly closed and manned the vacant space to clear the hallway when they got closer.

"I heard gunfire."

"Trowa!"

Oh, thank fuck.

Duo loved having backup, and this was definitely backup. Full Preventer uniforms kind of backup, and Heero's teeth were grinding together when he stepped into the room behind Trowa. "This is the last time either of you go off planet without me."

And holy shit, Wufei was there, too. Who let that bad idea off the ground?

"You know what? You're fucking right, you would've just shot this guy day one and I'm okay with that," Duo declared, putting the gun with safety on in the waistband of his pants. "Your ship got medical? Let's go."

Heero nodded. "Just don't shoot your ass off."

* * *

Wufei was never letting him go off world again.

He was just going to stay on Earth for the rest of forever, and he was sure that Treize was going to agree with him, if he could just... work out anything that had happened then. It felt like he'd walked into one of those absurdist movies Meredith used to make him watch, where a man with long wacky arms gave a poem about fish. And there were llamas or something.

Treize had finally calmed down or run out of energy, eyes closed tight, shivering continuously probably from the adrenaline. His right knee and the bones on either side of the joint were a bloody mess and his right hand was mangled in a way that made Wufei want to get it seen to immediately. At least the damn hospital bed had sheets on it, and he'd been able to pull them up.

"We, I have the rest of the council coming." The man Quatre insisted was in charge of L3 now sounded completely shaken as well.

Great. "Is Treize's luggage in the other room?" Wufei asked, and Duo slipped out of the room before bringing it back in with him.

"Pretty sure all of our stuff is a couple or three floors up."

"Five," Relena muttered.

"Five floors up," Duo agreed. "She was counting better than I was, probably. Mostly because it made her puke."

He opened the suitcase, and started to have a rummage. Treize's packing was much the same no matter where he was going or for how long; it all fit into a carryon bag or a duffle if he was feeling fit. Running shoes, running clothes, pajamas, and paired together neatly, everything he needed for two extra suits. His meds, toiletries, and oddly, a pair of sunglasses and the pocketknife Mariemaia had given him for Christmas, tucked into the very top.

Quite odd.

He'd worry about that later. "Hey. Hey, all of you get out for a minute."

Relena waved a hand from her seat on the floor. "Only if you want me to vomit."

"Bathroom," Heero grunted, and went to help her off of the floor.

Quatre politely motioned to the door. "Councilor Marat, if you wouldn't mind. We'll leave the door open," he offered. "Just so that it isn't claustrophobic."

He preferred the door closed, but since they were being left there with a corpse and Relena and Heero in the bathroom, while she continued to throw up, maybe not.

"Wufei."

"Hey." Hey, and he reached out, cupped Treize's jaw. "Yeah. It's me. I'm here. I thought I'd help you change. Do you want a suit or running gear or pajamas?"

His eyes were still closed tight, and he went still for a moment before leaning in against Wufei's hand, exhaling in a shudder. "Running. Knee's bleeding. Joggers you hate."

"You love those things." Wufei dug through anyway. He raised his voice. "Heero. Check the linen closet for gauze." He was pretty sure that they wouldn't have emptied things out just because Treize was gone. Especially if Kirill had thought that he might get him back, which he obviously had.

"Roger."

He petted the faint stubble coming up on Treize's jaw, skimming around a bruise that was already fading. Treize was stubbornly not opening his eyes, and even brought his left hand up to cover them, as if that would help. "Never leaving Earth again."

"Found it." He tossed it underhand at Wufei, along with rubbing alcohol.

"You kidding? You're not leaving my sight again. This is going to sting. Kind of a lot." He didn't bother to warn him further. Carefully, he moved Treize's leg and poured the alcohol, unsurprised by the sharp gasp or the way he trembled. "Mari says you aren't leaving her sight, either."

He sucked in a couple of deep breaths and gave that edge of emotion, fucked-up laugh that was just beside crying that Wufei recognized for what it was. "Okay. Okay. Just want to be home. Can't..."

"Hey. Hey." Wufei laid the alcohol aside and moved upward, settling himself beside Treize on the bed and pulling him in gently. "We're going home. I promise. We're going home just as soon as we can."

He had last sat on the edge of that hospital bed an eternity ago, a lifetime ago. Treize moved his hand off of his eyes and pressed his face against the fabric of Wufei's shirt, curling into him desperately. "I, I never seem to leave here. It never stops."

"It's stopping now. You aren't leaving Earth again." Wufei let him curl in, careful of his hand and his knee. "I'm stopping it." If he had to beat Dorothy until she agreed, he would. He didn't think that would actually be required.

All she would have to do was read the report on the sheer fiasco of it, and she wouldn't need to be told twice. 

What he said seemed to help. Treize nodded against him, breathing carefully, slowly, measured, suppressing the odd hitch in his breathing. "Too old for this shit."

"Wufei. I'll bind his leg if you hold him still."

"Loosely," Wufei directed Trowa. "It'll stick in it as it heals otherwise. It should be a little more functional in an hour, I just want to keep the blood off of his joggers. He likes them."

It got him a softer, less hysterical laugh against his stomach, a snort, and then he went still as Trowa cut at the fabric of his suit so it wouldn't be in the way and started to deftly wrap. Wufei wondered who'd taught Trowa; he seemed to know what he was doing. "Hand as well? Cut down on curiosity when we get back to base if it's covered."

"Yeah," Wufei agreed, petting Treize's hair. It was soft beneath his fingertips, only a little bit of product crisp against his fingers. "That would be good."

He was efficient and quiet, and it didn't make Treize worse, even when the wash of alcohol over mangled skin clearly hurt and made him hiss. Trowa wrapped loosely, gently, covering it well, down to his wrist, and then stepped back with a nod to Wufei. "Heero, Relena, it's time to go. Quatre will need the ESUN lead to help him."

Wufei heard Relena vomit again. He wasn't sure how she could possibly have anything else in her, but then the sound of flushing water came, and when she walked out she was at least less green. "Right. Let's go."

Trowa escorted them out, and without so much as a backward glance, mostly closed the door behind himself; Wufei could still hear the chaos in the hallway, but it was as much privacy as they were going to get. A jostle got Treize moving toward trying to sit up, but he was still refusing to look at the room.

"Treize." He put his fingers under Treize's chin and tilted it upward. "Can you look at me? You don't have to look at the rest of the room. It's fine. You can just look at me if you can."

"I, I..." He opened his eyes, fixed immediately on Wufei's eyes, barely blinking. And focused on his breathing, keeping it slow and steady and practiced.

"Hi. Hi." Wufei kept petting him, gentle and easy. "It's me. I'm here. And we are never coming back to this thrice benighted hellhole."

He kept holding Wufei's eyes, and nodded while he managed to get somewhat upright, still leaning on Wufei while trying to very unsteadily get his shirt off as a start. "Never doing anything else for Dorothy except charity balls and banquets. F-fuck."

"I'm going to stand up now," Wufei warned, and he did, slowly. "Let me help you get it off. Mari's safe. I sent her to the school and hired a few extra security people to keep an eye on things. I don't think she's under any threat, I just didn't want you to worry." He kept talking as he began assisting Treize in getting off his shirt. "I nearly had a fight with Heero and Trowa. They didn't want to let me come but I told them it was that or I would follow them in Nataku."

Having his hand completely bandaged helped. There were bruises on his left hand, and Wufei knew how fast Treize healed. He didn't know what had been going on, just what the room had looked like when they'd arrived. He let the shirt fall onto the bed, while Wufei helped him into his T-shirt. "He, he..." Treize was still looking right at Wufei, locked on, and he closed his eyes tight for just a moment. "Can't do this. Later. Not safe for you here."

"I know." Leaning in, he kissed his forehead. "But I had to come." And he had. He'd had to come because it wasn't the first time Treize had needed rescuing from this spectacular hellhole, but it was going to be the last. "I'm going to cut off the rest of your trousers so we can get your joggers on. Are you okay with that?"

"Yes." It wasn't like Treize cared about his suits. He held still, eyes closed, while Wufei cut away the fabric, keeping a hand on Treize at all times while the man sat still and tense. His underwear was a loss, too, ripped at the side, and easy to cut away with everything else.

By the time Wufei helped him pull on the joggers, he was moving a little better. Less like things were shattered, but it obviously wasn't pleasant. Still, they shouldn't spend more time in this place, especially not with a dead body. "Right. I don't want you walking on that. Let me see if..."

"I'll walk on it if it gets us home quicker." Treize held still as Wufei stepped back to the door to find Duo's back blocking the open crack of the door.

"You guys ready to move?"

Wufei nodded and Duo slipped into the room. "Alley-oop, buddy. I'll get the right side if you get the left, and then it's straight back to the spaceport, yeah?"

"Yes," Wufei agreed. It was the best idea, he was sure of it. They could probably get away with refusing extradition if they were on ground that, technically speaking, didn't belong to the colony. Then it was just the matter of getting the shuttle out of the spaceport.

They got Treize standing, balancing on one leg and trying to move along with them despite the fact that he refused to open his eyes until they were out in the hallway. They were out of the damn room, though, and past the corpse on the floor, and Wufei thought that perhaps it was going to go all right until he saw the council whatever coming toward him. The man looked shaken, as he broke away from a cluster of his own people.

"I'm sorry, I can't have you leave yet, we have to sort this out."

"X18999 attacked an ESUN peace delegation; you murdered part of your own Junta. You sort it out." Treize's voice dropped low, angry, his left hand clutching tight to Wufei's shoulder. 

"And he's wanted for murder," Marat said, pointing to Wufei. "We just need to document and... come to some kind of, of accord..."

"What do you want?" The question was spoken with flat inflection, a demand more than anything else. "Because you people keep putting me in very bad positions. As if you didn't know Dekim was mostly insane, and apparently your replacement was very into torture and rape, so you didn't exactly make a stellar choice there, either."

On Treize's other side, Duo looked thoughtful. "Well. He's not wrong there, you know."

"We need... something signed some kind of continuation granted, because otherwise I have people who want these trade concessions or war, and you're now in a position to declare war on us." But they wouldn't. That was what ESUN wasn't doing.

Between them, Treize shifted awkwardly, holding tight to Wufei and partially leaning on Duo. Marat took a step backward and looked to Relena. "Vice Minister, perhaps we could resume an abbreviated version of negotiations at the spaceport. Prior to your departure, of course."

Heero's jaw was set and he looked as if he'd like to argue, but Relena nodded. "That would be quite acceptable so long as all of us are allowed to board and leave."

It was good to know that she meant all when she said all, at least for Wufei. "Since I'm here, perhaps we could come to an agreement for trade regarding minerals." He had a sufficient number of mines. If it felt a bit like paying his way out of a crime, well. He sort of was.

He was willing to. Marat looked at him with a bright sort of shock in his eyes, as if he hadn't grasped it was an option but was now terribly excited by the idea. "I think that could be an acceptable concession. I, uh. We'll have you and your luggage taken to the spaceport immediately..." He gestured to two of his people, and stepped away for what Wufei assumed was a decisive huddle.

He glanced over to Treize, who still looked as if he might be in shock. "Come on, then."

Duo grinned at him. "You didn't mention the self-sacrificial thing he has going on, by the way."

Wufei allowed one brow to rise. "I honestly didn't think it needed mentioning, all things considered."

"Course, if he hadn't been using ZERO again, we wouldn't have even gotten the heads up that we did..."

Between them, Treize went very still, and Wufei cut his eyes to the side to look at him. "Oh, was he now."

He closed his eyes again, and that wasn't actually going to make anything go away. "A modified version. I was testing it as an augment for long haul pilots."

"Hm." It was not the time to get in a loud drawn out argument about the ZERO system and all the ways it left someone fucked up. Of course, there would be lingering fretfulness about when that argument would find its time, but for now it was best to let it go.

They had other things to resolve.

It took a while to get things moving, to get everyone up the elevator, and into vehicles. "Hey, this is the place we stopped running at yesterday," Duo said, marveling at the place as they stepped out into the weird evening light. "Huh. You really are crazy."

"Debatable," Treize muttered.

"Not crazy," Wufei disagreed. "Just... has no sense of self-preservation whatsoever. Why do you think I called you in the first place?"

"It worked. Everyone's still alive." That wasn't a good metric, and they could have that discussion later, when they were alone.

Wufei managed not to snort. "Our daughter is going to be far more loudly displeased than I am." His voice was deceptively mild as they strolled out and found the transport Trowa and Heero had used. "In you go."

He knew Treize wasn't feeling well when he didn't even make a joke about staying there so he wouldn't have to go through a couple of weeks of being chewed out. Instead he was silent, grimacing a little as they all got settled. Quatre got into the front seat, and Duo broke contact to join Heero and Relena while Trowa turned the vehicle on. "We're boarding as soon as we get there. We'll keep the personnel involved in negotiations to a minimum."

"I'll make myself scarce as much as possible then," Wufei advised, and when Treize leaned into him, he kissed his temple and petted him, fingers gentle in his hair.

He didn't have the space in his head to think about any of it as Trowa drove, heading to a spaceport that he'd left once before, and been pretty excited to see the back of at the time. He was never coming back to L3, never.

At the spaceport, Marat tried to keep them all off the ship, and failed, as Trowa helped Wufei get Treize inside, and then started to rummage for medical supplies. Quatre and Relena seemed to be handling it well, with Heero as grim reaper while the ruling Junta tried to do the work that they'd allowed their leader to short circuit the morning before. To accomplish...

He didn't know. Nothing good. Sitting beside him in the back of the ship, Treize leaned in close, still focused on his breathing from the sheer regularity of it. "He wanted you dead," he finally offered.

He hadn't stopped petting him since they'd made it back to the shuttle, and he didn't stop now. "Joke's on him, then." Wufei kissed his temple. He kept doing it, and he wasn't going to stop until Treize managed to relax and let go.

That probably wouldn't happen for a couple of weeks, either.

"He killed me in the first version. Relena next. Quatre ended up thrown out the window. Going peacefully seemed the best option." He was breathing a little faster, but thinking about a ZERO experience wasn't easy, even if it hadn't driven him or Wufei to madness like the other pilots.

Then again, maybe Treize had already been mad before he started using it. "I know. I know." Hell of a fight that would be. "You know we're going to have to talk about this, yes? Eventually. Not now." He kept petting him, fingers stroking and gentle. "It's not a terrible idea, but it's... okay, yes, it is in fact a terrible idea."

"It's a terrible idea," Treize agreed, giving a rough laugh as he turned his head slightly and slouched, pressing his face against Wufei's collarbone and neck. "But we would've been dead."

"I know. But you aren't. You're all alive and they'll work it out." One way or another. He could hear Relena bargaining toward the front, and she was driving quite an excellent bargain for that matter.

Perhaps he should hire her as a consultant. Not that she needed the money, but it was enjoyable to listen to. "It's in the sunglasses. I shouldn't... I don't know what to do next. With it."

Throw them out, obviously. "Mhm." Treize was calming at least, and Wufei would take what he could get. "It's fine. We'll worry about that later. Right now, I want you to worry about getting on an even keel. I'll call Dr. du Maurier as soon as we set down and ask her to come to the house, hm?"

Well, not throw them out, but disassemble them and then work out how to keep Treize from ever re-assembling it. Ever. In _sunglasses_. "Yes. I. You were right. Of course."

"I'm always right." And if he sounded far too amused by that fact, well. He couldn't help himself. "Mark that down and remember it."

Trowa settled himself down nearby. "The sad thing is that he's right far too often and it's annoying."

"I mostly listen to him, but when I don't... it's usually spectacular." Treize didn't try to sit up or move like he usually would have done. Of course, everyone had just walked in on him bare assed on the floor having a breakdown under a corpse, so there wasn't much sense in feigning dignity yet.

Wufei couldn't help the vague sound of amusement that he gave. "Well. Yes. Mostly, you do just fine." The petting, at least, seemed more helpful than not. "It's going to be fine. We'll get home and we can go from there." Right at the moment he wasn't much worried by the notion that he might end up executed. After all, last he'd heard, Marat wanted his minerals more than he wanted his death. If he could get that documented formally, that would be perfect. He was still never setting foot on L3, but it wasn't as if the colony could mine itself short of capturing an asteroid.

"Quatre has some thoughts about ZERO. He can come by and you can both talk about it, Treize. In a couple weeks." Trowa looked over his shoulder toward the main door, toward the far front while he said it.

In the meantime, they'd try to dial everything back into place. It wasn't like he could just make everything ZERO related disappear. Not even close since it was all in his head in any case. Treize could probably build it out of scratch from nothing but wire remnants and random circuit boards.

He'd built it into _sunglasses,_ for fuck's sake. And Wufei hadn't even known he'd done it, because Treize hadn't been doing anything suspicious in the workshop except... he'd been gone for a week. Had it really only taken a week? 

Treize exhaled, and nodded slightly. "That's fine." He could feel the man's eyelashes against his skin, and he was tempted to recline his seat and just nap until takeoff.

"Thank you for letting me come with you," Wufei told Trowa. "I know neither of you wanted me here, but..." But he needed to be here.

It wasn't as if being there fixed anything, but it had let him know Treize was safe, let him triage the situation. If he'd had to wait until they were all home... "If our roles were reversed..." Trowa made a slight gesture between himself and Wufei. "You would have done the same for Quatre and myself."

"Yes." They weren't pilots anymore. They were quite different now.

They'd still be pilots until they died.

Trowa was silent for a moment more, then stood up to rummage in the overhead. He pulled out a blanket, and handed it to Wufei, and then turned to go. "I'm going to get our negotiators moving. Get some sleep."

"Thanks." He draped it over Treize and tucked it in around the edges. "It's a good idea. Can you?"

"No idea how I'm still awake." He shifted slightly, trying to sit up and lean less on Wufei, right leg stretched out awkwardly in front of him. "There was no sense to it."

"That's how madness works. At least it seems like it hasn't taken root in everyone. Go back to resting on me if you want. I'm all right."

"Fucking hip's hurting. Icing on the goddamned cake." He laughed quietly when he groused it, and shifted to lean into Wufei, sliding his good arm behind Wufei's back. The arm between their seats was still up, so there was room to move. "Just... so tired of this."

"Mhm." They were settled, at least reasonably so. "Get comfortable however you can. We'll be home soon." And he was certainly going to have a long-winded vicious fight with Dorothy about where it was acceptable to send Treize again, and that she'd best not expect him out anytime soon, either.

He saw Trowa give him a thumbs up from the other end of the aisle, and let himself relax slightly. Very soon, they'd be home.

* * *

The night terrors were new and unwelcome.

Twice in the last week, he'd woken up panicked and drenched in sweat, and had to take a quick cold shower before changing clothes and crawling back into bed. It wasn't anything Wufei needed, it wasn't anything he needed to deal with, but everything was worse in his head than it had been before. Someone had trashed the metaphorical room in his head, and the furniture was smashed and scattered, and he didn't know what to do with all of the terrible new information, the things his brain was supplying him like an eager child wanting to show off a new find. 

Except it was offerings of violence and pain. He was dreaming about the wars, and he hadn't dreamed about that in years, about shattered mechs half buried in the dirt they'd smashed into, and crawling in to demil them, set the detonator charges and take the name tags off the corpses so they could do the paperwork. Get issued a new pilot, fill in the ranks, while his surviving men stared at broken bodies and wondered who would be next. And then eventually they stopped wondering, gave up and embraced it. He didn't know when the panic had first gone away. 

It was harder to get up early in the morning for a jog, and that morning he laid there, watching the light crawl up the wall past Wufei, an arm slung across his chest.

Thank god Wufei slept like the living dead and hated mornings.

Still, this wasn't working. The attempts not to think about it, not to react to it. Worse, Wufei wouldn't even fight about it. He had been unreasonably calm and controlled, and he thought that scared Mariemaia worse than if they'd had a good rousing session of yelling themselves hoarse.

He didn't know how to jump the gap. And there was a gap, because Wufei was being careful, and he lacked the emotional skills to articulate any of it well, and that was how things went to hell. Slowly, quietly, insidiously, because tiptoeing became habit became reality became distance, and he was so tired. He was just tired. He had memories popping up like flashing warning signs and he knew he had two years that he was mostly missing, and it had probably been a lot of torture and rape and howling for help that wasn't coming. And his body had remembered it.

Which was remarkable, but not how he'd wanted to learn such an astonishing fact, that the body remembered where the mind couldn't process. Even a body like his that wiped the slate clean regularly. Treize shifted his fingers on Wufei's chest, keeping it low, sleepy, keeping himself as close to drowsing as he could manage. He needed to find the words to fix it.

"Huzashimashum." Ah, yes. He was quite familiar with the gibberish that Wufei spoke when he wasn't actually awake but wanted to offer some sort of consolation, his hand patting sleepily at Treize.

He sat up a little, twisted and caught those fingers, in his hand, before leaning down to kiss his chest. "Good morning to you, too." Wufei's body was a familiar playground for him, the contours of life and muscle familiar beneath his fingers and lips. He couldn't remember a time when Wufei didn't create a surge of interest for him, a feeling of heat and warmth and want curling in his chest, and sliding all the way down to his balls.

"Hmmmm." Yes, that was a good sound. He might not be awake, but he was most certainly enjoying being touched. Sensual, that was what he loved about Wufei. It was remarkable how much he enjoyed a good round of pleasure.

It was a delight to make Wufei moan and pant beneath him, whether it was from his mouth or his hands or his cock. Just thinking about it made him ache -- Wufei leaning back against him, panting and begging for more, begging for him to move -- so he lingered as he got comfortable, rubbing and then sucking on one nipple.

Another low humming murmur came, and a hand waved around vaguely before settling on the back of his neck, stroking.

He liked that touch. He'd been with plenty of other partners who didn't, and it was the oddest thing, the lack of lingering touches. He enjoyed the way Wufei petted his hair, goaded him on. It was grounding and such a weird relief, had been since Luxembourg. He shifted, kissing across Wufei's chest to lave his tongue over his other nipple, which earned him a few more well-earned little mumbles of sound.

"'s... good way to wake up." Wufei's voice was thick, his faint accent more pronounced when he was still half-asleep. His hands didn't stop petting, though. "'s nice."

"Morning." He turned his head into the curl of Wufei's fingers sliding over the back of his neck, before he started to kiss his way down the middle of Wufei's chest, toward his belly button.

It wasn't surprising to see sleepy eyes open and look down at him. "Morning, love. 's nice, I think." Murmuring and soft, blurry still, and yes. Yes, this was one of his favorites, soft lazy mornings. 

He hadn't slept well, but it was refreshing as he kissed his way down, shoving the sheets back, repositioning himself and Wufei so Wufei's legs were loose, giving him room to cup Wufei's balls. "It's very nice."

Deep breath, and then Wufei sprawled himself open for him, humming and loose. "Going to fuck me after?"

"Might." He looked up the line of Wufei's body, and kept looking as he shifted and got a knee under himself and kissed the underside of Wufei's dick. He tasted clean and warm, like bedclothes and sleep and hot skin, a deeply familiar taste to his precum when he licked the tip, and watched Wufei's face.

Pure shining enjoyment. That was what he saw, and that was more than enough for him. Hands stroked his shoulders, fingers on the back of his neck and in his hair, and Wufei with his mouth open on his breaths, soft and lovely in the wavering morning light.

Treize suppressed a smile, and slipped a hand to rest at the small of Wufei's back, half holding onto him as he lowered his head to start slurping in earnest, a slow, steady up-down motion. "Fuuuuuhhh." Ah, yes, and Wufei's fingers threaded into his hair, holding loosely. "God, you're so. So fucking good at it. Fuck. Do. Do it, do me, do whatever you want."

Sometimes he needed to hear that so much, to make Wufei squirm and beg, while he kept at it with what he hoped was metronome precision, gently fondling his balls all the while. Treize could get to fucking him in good time.

"Oh. Oh god, it's. It's so good, nnn." His hips were an easy roll, nothing that made him want to choke or struggle, just enough to show him how much he was wanted. Needed. "Fuck. Fuck, it's. You feel so.. Oh, love."

Perfect. He fell into tempo with those easy rolls not wanting to make it a struggle for Wufei and not wanting to keep him on edge too long. He wanted to keep it soft and easy and lazy, wanted to feel Wufei's body when he came, wanted to taste him.

When it came, it was just the way he wanted -- low pleasured noises, more of a shiver than a shudder, and Wufei's hand was over his mouth, muffling most of the sound of it, and the praise that had kept spilling from him through every second of it.

He swallowed, licking his lips as he pulled back and then leaned back over Wufei to kiss his hand aside, to kiss his lips. "Good morning."

"A very good morning," Wufei agreed, the sound of it low and lazy. They tasted of morning breath and semen and he didn't think either of them cared a single bit. "Especially good if you're going to fuck me now. Or even if you aren't. That was..." Another kiss. "Ohh, yes."

"Maybe. I think we should talk first." He pulled back a little, one hand skimming Wufei's side gently, and ended up sitting kneeling over Wufei's thighs, which was very comfortable as long as all of his joints felt like playing along.

Ah, that was quite a serious face. "So long as that isn't code for _I'm leaving you and taking our daughter_ , I'm game."

He was sure his eyebrows went up, and he leaned forward slightly, stroking Wufei's stomach. "No, it's code for I don't know what's going on, and I'm confused."

"Oh." Wufei looked up at him, hands stroking along his thighs. "All right. It's all right not to know what's going on, you know. What's confusing?"

There had to be a better way to say it, but he didn't know if prettier more carefully chosen words would help. "You're not talking to me."

Wufei's brows drew together. "We've had several conversations, in point of fact. Is there something more specific that you mean?"

"You're walking on eggshells. I do notice this." Mariemaia had noticed, but he didn't wield her as a weapon as readily as Wufei did.

For a moment, he wondered what his answer would be. "Mm. Yes. I don't... I know you're not in a good place for the conversation we ought to have. And the last thing either of us needs is to have a fight about something that can wait."

"I'd rather have the fight. It's..." He waved one hand slightly, off to the side. "Concerning."

"All right, then." Wufei drew in a deep breath. "Fine. I don't like that you're working with ZERO again. It makes people crazy. Varying degrees of completely insane."

"It doesn't make me insane." It made everything easier to sort through, and harder in the same breath. "It... if I hadn't used it, we would be dead right now. You'd be here without me."

"I know, and that's the last thing I want. Which is why we haven't had this argument, because I don't think you're ready for that sort of fight. It doesn't make you insane, maybe. Maybe. But it makes you manic and it makes you suicidal, or at least self-sacrificial. And it makes everyone else completely mad as a hatter, so it's a bad idea no matter what." His hands kept stroking Treize's thighs, gentle.

"What if something happens again, and it could have helped. What if something happens to you. Or Mariemaia, and I could have stopped it..." Or or, and he felt his anxiety rising for a moment, fingers faltering on Wufei's skin. "And at the same time, I, I can't keep doing this."

"First, nothing is going to happen. We're careful. We have normal lives these days, for the most part." Thumbs were rubbing at his hips. "Second, this is what I mean. You can't keep doing this. You're a fucking mess, and ZERO's at the heart of it. You need to stop and dismantle it. Last time, you fucking died. You died and you made me bear the cost of your death, only surprise! You didn't. And where did that end? Two years of pain and suffering for you and me both. You start this shit and it goes straight from things being all right and down the drain because you think it's okay if you die. It isn't. You worry what might happen to us, but what if something happens to you? Do you know what that would do?"

It was shooting low, and he was quiet, feeling Wufei's fingers, feeling his thighs under his ass and the backs of his legs, the bed sheets against his calves. He focused on it, the reality of the moment, and breathed. "I can imagine. I don't think it's okay that I die, it just... I went for the solution where no one else was hurt."

"I know. But might there have been a solution where you weren't hurt and everyone else lived? As opposed to you being destroyed and everyone else without a scratch?" Wufei's right thumb was moving in circles now. "You... you're not just coin to pay some invisible piper, love. You're important. You can't count yourself as some sort of sacrifice."

He let his head hang a little, looking at Wufei's hand, and resting his own hand over top of it. "There might have been one. I didn't, I stopped at the first one. I don't know."

"I know." And he did, because Wufei was like that. "I know. And everyone lived, but the cost. Treize, you have to count the cost to yourself when you count the cost for everyone else. This, you doing this, it's destructive. And not just to you. When you're the cost, when you pay with yourself, you've decided for me and Mari, too. That the cost for all of us isn't too high, and I'm telling you right now that it is. It is too high."

"I'm not looking at this the right way," he said after a long silence, fingers rubbing over Wufei's hand. "I know what you mean, but I'm hearing and thinking something different. It's..." He knew Wufei didn't mean that he was too hard to deal with when everything wasn't working.

"That's the reason we haven't been having this conversation. You aren't... settled, you need to understand exactly how much you mean to me. To us, to..." Wufei's tongue darted out and licked his upper lip, then his lower one. "You're important." And if his eyes were damp, perhaps it was just an illusion of the morning light. "You and Mari are everything I have. I don't think you understand how much that means especially not when you try and throw yourself away."

"I didn't..." He moved, kneeling up, and then laid down beside Wufei because he wanted to kiss him just then. "Not on purpose."

"I know." And maybe he did at that. "But that's why you need to stop fucking with it. Maybe it didn't drive us insane. Maybe it just makes you maniacally suicidal and me... I don't know, but I can assure you, I've never fallen in bed with someone I've only met in person twice before that one time. Never." He paused. "I'm glad you had it when you needed it and I'm glad everyone survived unharmed, but it needs to be left safely in someone else's hands. Someone who won't use it and who has better judgment than you."

He laughed, sliding his arms around Wufei as he heard that. "I'm still glad you used it, then. I'm. I'll reach out to Quatre."

"Can't argue that he has better sense than you." And obviously it wasn't safe to leave it with Wufei because that meant it was in Treize's reach. He slid closer, though, buried his face in Treize's throat for a moment, their legs tangling. "Hey. Are you feeling any better?"

"There are too many ways I can answer that question." He managed to smile, and slid fingers up to rub gently against Wufei's scalp.

"Ah? Then I will need to learn to specify in better ways." The yawn was as much felt as it was heard. "That feels good."

"Yes." He held him tightly for a moment, closing his eyes. "Please don't hold back on anything because you think I'm not ready or able to handle it. I don't know when I'm going to have solid footing again and things fester."

"Usually I wouldn't. Wait, that is. But you are..." He was stroking him again, gentle and easy. "I was quite worried that it would upset you. And we've had enough upsetting things for a bit."

"We're home. I'm not..." No, or apparently he was, and gave a frustrated huff at his own failure to put it together in words. The stroking helped. "I'm afraid of what could happen to you and Mariemaia and that makes me reluctant to let it go. But I can't keep using it."

"No. You can't." Wufei kissed just under his chin, nuzzling. "You're worth so much more to me than that."

Letting reality happen without perfect knowledge or an intervention. He'd been fine with it for the longest time, and he could be fine with it again. Both times it had been out of pure fear and grief. "You're impossible." And he was so very glad of it, sliding one hand down Wufei's back. "Anything else you've been holding out on?"

"No. Unless you want to talk about something, and I don't know about it already." Wufei made a noise that was inarguably a laugh. "Or something that would turn you on. Or..."

Or. Or he was tired and relieved and wrung out just by existing inside his head, and he didn't have to let himself drift off and disassociate. He could have everything, whether he deserved it or not, and thinking it came with an odd sick relief that pooled behind his eyes and the back of his jaw. "I'm never leaving again. I, tell me something good. Distract me."

"Oh, how good?" When Wufei pulled back to look at him, he had a teasing expression. "What kind of good? And you are not ever leaving again."

He preferred the teasing expression to the one where Wufei had asked him if he was leaving. That simply... that shouldn't have even existed in Wufei's head as a thought, Treize decided, stretching his fingers to either side of Wufei's spine. "Horny good. Since I derailed giving you a good wake up."

"Ahh, horny good." Wufei paused. "Mmm. You know, I was married at fifteen. It was a tradition, although most people married older. I knew it was coming and I wasn't sure what to do about it, exactly. I had this boyfriend, though. Hmm, there are pictures. You'd like the look of him. Pictures from later than when he was fourteen, in fact. He was beautiful, you'd love to see him. He was beautiful. Waist length hair, slim, broad shoulders. Couldn't see for shit."

"Tell me more about your blind, but gorgeous boyfriend," Treize half laughed, settling in comfortably. "He couldn't have been too blind -- he picked you.

"Without his glasses, he couldn't see four inches in front of his face. If he was lucky." And that seemed quite all right. "We studied martial arts together, and I told you he mastered hidden weapons. All of the interesting ropes and handcuffs and knots." Wufei's breath was warm against his throat. "So what do you want to hear? First time he tied me up, first time we made out, first time we had sex?"

"Whichever of those is your favorite. I'll be imagining you at your current age." He felt Wufei snort against his throat, and smiled. "First time you had sex."

"Ahh, well. That." Wufei's hands were warm on him, stroking everywhere he could reach. "We had no idea what we were doing, so we ended up searching datastreams for answers. Which we found, but god, everyone in the streams is built like you." Well. That was a lovely place for his hand to find. "So we were both quite nervous, I think. Snuck off one night to this lovely little pond -- well, you know what ponds are like on colonies, they're all much more like swimming pools than anything else -- off in one of the sections that wasn't well-maintained or populated aside from the water system, so it was... nice."

He shifted his hips slightly, encouraging Wufei's exploring hand on his previously soft dick. "No attacks by fish?"

"Hm, no. No fish. Just us and fireflies, so it was quite lovely. Very romantic." Ah, that was quite nice, in fact. "So, we went to the pond, and we took almond oil with us, because, well. You know why." He laughed and gave a light bite at Treize's shoulder. "Blanket and all, right? And he kept his glasses on even though it was ridiculous, but he wanted to see." He shifted again, leaned up and kissed him. "Hmmm. And I didn't care who was on top."

He kissed Wufei back, starting to relax into it, to hold onto him less desperately. "Which is how you ended up on bottom." _'I don't care'_ was sometimes a very sly way of saying _'fuck me hard now'_ , when one didn't want to sound like one was gagging for it. Not that it was a technique Treize had used a time or five himself, no.

Wufei shrugged. "I was curious. And why shouldn't I be?"

"Everyone in the datastream videos looked like they were having fun, why not try it," Treize agreed, smiling up at him.

"Hm, yes. Exactly." And when had Wufei ended up on top of him, exactly? "Well. That and I already quite knew I liked that sort of thing. Mu Tsu lived with his grandmother and was a bit more worried about what she might hear. The old woman had ears like a bat, and my family could sleep through anything. So. It was easier to let him." Stretching up, Wufei kissed him. "And we thought that probably the best way would be for him to lie down like you are right now and... oh, that's lovely, yes, do that again."

He kissed Wufei's neck, slow, lingering, letting one hand drift slowly down between Wufei's asscheeks. "Hmn, I did wonder why this was your favorite position."

"Ohh, yes. Yes, please. Do that." And he turned his head, kissed him, sweet and steady and delicious. "So we started off not like this at all. Mu Tsu on top and kissing me, and my legs around him. Oh, that is, hm. That is so..."

Lulling, almost soothing, the slow press of mouth on mouth, moving against his, and the taste of Wufei, breathing him in. Letting one finger linger at the puckered edge of his asshole, just teasing with a dry touch. "Go on."

Squirm of hips. "And there was a lot of this. Kissing and grinding and... oh, god, you always feel so good." So did Wufei. "And so finally we, hm. We switched places. More like this actually. And when he first put his fingers in me... ngh. It was. It was just one, so gentle and easy, just, just..."

He wished he'd grabbed the lube, instead of still teasing at Wufei with a dry finger when he could have had him slick already. Foresight went out the window when relief took over. "Just like?"

"Just like I want you to do to me now." His voice was a little gravelly, and it was obvious that he was enjoying it. "Want me to get the lube?"

"Yes." He exhaled and the sound was a little more interested and needy than he'd meant, but without some unknown tension hanging over them, it was like someone had cut a line that he hadn't known was choking him.

It took a bit of fumbling, but Wufei finally managed to get his hands on it. It was the stuff that tasted like vanilla cake, but it was still slick, and it didn't matter. "So. Yes. Yes, just one, all right?" Wufei leaned down and kissed him. "His fingers were... oh, yours are bigger, but your everything is..." He huffed a breath. "Yeah."

"I'm going to remember you said I'm hung like someone who should be on a data stream," he teased, slicking his fingers and then teasing just one gently into the center of that pucker. Slick was better, slick was always better.

There was no stopping the laugh, or the moan that fell from his lips after. "Oh. Oh, that's... mmm, that is. And you are. Mu Tsu was more like me. Thinner than you. Long, though. And god, ah, that's. That's so good."

"He took his time getting you ready?" He eased his finger back, and then in again, searching and stretching playfully, trying to get Wufei to squirm more.

"Oh. Oh. Yeah, mhm. Just, just like... mmmm, just like that. Yes. He was... he was slow because he didn't want it to hurt. So funny, because sometimes, sometimes..." Yes, sometimes he liked it when the stretch was too fast, too much.

"If it burns a little, if it aches, that's good, too," he murmured, turning his head to kiss at the hard edge of Wufei's jaw. "That moment when it feels like too much and maybe not enough?" He started to ease his hand back to add another finger. His dick was starting to ache.

Ah, he was panting, rocking his hips. "Yes. Yes, that. Yes, with you, always. Always, as much as I, oh, god, yes."

The urge to roll them over and fuck Wufei hard into the mattress was immense, but he kept it teasing and slow, sliding two fingers in and taking his time opening Wufei up. "Grateful for that."

"Mhm. Yeah. Yes. Yes, and we, we decided this was the way, and..." He shivered. "Oh, god, when he put it in, it felt huge. Huge, and I, I thought I'd never get used to it, I thought I..."

"You'd never adjust, never mind want more." He struggled for a moment to keep his motions smooth, sliding two fingers back to add a third, carefully. Fuck that felt good, and Wufei's shiver against him was the best part.

"Ahhh, ah, ah, I. I want... It feels so, it's so good with you, it's always so good with you, fuck, please, I want you, I want to feel you, I want..." Clenching around his fingers, cock rubbing against him, and he was beautiful in pleasure.

He was beautiful all the time, but he was so beautiful in pleasure, flushed and loose, begging when Treize eased his fingers back and smeared lubricant on his dick, squeezing a little too hard as if that would make him last longer when he finally slid into Wufei. He cried out and fumbled for a moment, got his hands on Treize's shoulders so that he could push up, look down at him. His hair was a mess, tumbled everywhere, stuck to his sweat-damp cheek. "A-and when he, when I got used to it? God, fuck, ah, your cock. When I got used to it, I... I did this, ," he gasped, and then pushed, took him in a little too fast, a little too much, and he cried out, eyes closed, brows knit. "Fuck, fuck!"

Like a vice, clenching and spasming around him instead of the usual slow easing down; he wanted to move but didn't dare, just held onto Wufei's hips and felt his dick twitch in hope. "Oh god."

The soft keening sound kept coming, and Wufei was working himself around him, squeezing tightly. "Fuck, fuck, it's so good, it's so. It's so good, and the first time felt too much, the first time was hard, and this is, you're so perfect, fuck, ah, I need you to fuck me, I need you to..."

Move, move, and he took that as permission, starting to buck up into Wufei slowly, a steady pace because otherwise he'd let go too much and Wufei would ache for days. "I want to fuck you into the mattress, but this way I can see all of you..."

"Please." Wufei was looking down at him, mouth open, cheeks red. "Fuck me. Fuck me, make me feel you, I want to feel you next week, I want your cock until I, until I..."

Treize drew a leg up, slid an arm tight around Wufei, and with a good flex rolled them both over, so that Wufei was on his back, and it was awkward for just a moment before he found his rhythm again, fucking Wufei as hard as he was asking for. He was crying out, moaning under him, had his left knee in his hand and he was pulling it toward his shoulder, trying to stay open for him because he was fucking perfect. So good, and each thrust of his hips was met with a roll of Wufei's

His voice broke when he started pleading again, saying that he was close, so close, that he wanted to come on Treize's cock, and god, yes, he wanted that. He got an elbow on the bed, so he didn't lose his balance completely, and reached between them with his other hand to start stroking Wufei off while thrusting.

It didn't take long at all, and Wufei sobbed, one leg wrapped around him, one awkwardly close to an arm, and he clenched tight, shuddering and hot. He lasted another few harried thrusts, and tried not to fall onto Wufei and his bent leg, shuddering through a burst of blue, yellow and red before he shifted his weight to his knees, and started to try to ease out and sit up. That earned him a whine, and Wufei was still tight around him even then.

"Holy... holy god. I hope when we die, it's mid-orgasm," Wufei muttered several moments later.

He sprawled out beside Wufei, and slid an arm behind his back, pulling him in close, despite the sweat. "Mariemaia would be grimly un-surprised."

Wufei muffled a laugh against his shoulder. "Almost certainly not."

"Give her one last 'I can't fucking believe it' moment. 'Reclusive former world leader and businessman partner found dead overnight, foul play not suspected. Surviving daughter tells police, _'they were always at it like rabbits, don't even bother with an autopsy.'_ Seems like a nice way to go." Better than some of the options he'd seen.

Ah, he enjoyed those sounds, not quite giggles but close, and they were interrupted by a yawn. "Need a shower." It was fairly obvious that he'd like to go back to sleep, too. "I'm glad we got things settled."

Not fixed, but settled enough that he didn't think he was going to lose his mind. "After breakfast, come out to the workshop with me, and we'll put everything from ZERO in a box and seal it."

And Wufei tipped his head, looked at him, and smiled. "Yeah. Yes. After breakfast, I will."

He couldn't destroy it and he couldn't use it, so he could put it in a box and give it to someone else to hold onto in case a dire need ever did arise. It probably wouldn't, and that would keep every question and worry he had from spiraling into a dire need. 

"And maybe a bath instead of a shower," he suggested, sitting up and pulling Wufei with him a little.

"Sounds like a plan."


End file.
